Jump to content

Epik

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from BitMitigate)
This article is about a web services provider. For other companies with similar names, see Epic (disambiguation) § Brands and enterprises. For other uses, see Epik (disambiguation).
Epik, LLC.
Company typePrivate
IndustryWeb services
Founded2009; 15 years ago (2009)
FounderRob Monster
Headquarters
Sheridan, Wyoming
,
U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
ServicesDomain name registration, web hosting
Number of employees
80 (2021)
ParentRegistered Agents Inc.
SubsidiariesEpik Holdings, Inc.
Websitewww.epik.com Edit this at Wikidata

Epik is an American domain registrar and web hosting company known for providing services to alt-tech websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist materials.[1] It has been described as a "safehaven for the extreme right" because of its willingness to provide services to far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.[2][8]

Some of Epik's notable clients have included social network Gab and the imageboard website 8chan.[9] In 2021, the Parler social network moved its domain registration to Epik when it was denied hosting and other web services after it was used to help plan the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol.[10] Epik has also provided hosting and registrar services to Patriots.win, formerly TheDonald.win, an independent far-right forum that has served as the successor for the r/The_Donald subreddit that was banned in June 2020.[11][12][13]

Epik was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster, and is based in Washington State.[3] In September and October 2021, hackers identifying themselves as a part of Anonymous released several caches of data obtained from Epik in a large-scale data breach.[14][15][16] In 2023, Epik was acquired by Registered Agents Inc., a company owned by Dan Keen.[17][18]

History

[edit]

Epik was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster, who served as the company's chief executive officer until 2022.[3] In the late 2010s, following a series of acquisitions, Epik also began providing an increasing variety of other web services including web hosting, content delivery network (CDN) services, and DDoS protection.[19][20] Until 2018, Epik primarily focused on domain trading and mostly stayed out of the public spotlight. In 2018, the company came to public attention when they decided to provide services to Gab.[21] Epik is primarily known for its domain name registration services, and, until its ownership change in 2022, described itself as the "Swiss bank of the domain industry".[22] As of January 2022, Epik was the 22nd largest domain registrar in the United States and 47th largest globally, as measured by the number of domains registered through the company.[23] In 2021, Epik had 80 employees.[24]

Epik board members have included Braden Pollock and Tal Moore.[25][26] Joseph Peterson was Epik's director of operations from 2017 until 2019. Rob Davis serves as senior vice president for strategy and communications.[27] Moore left the board in December 2018, over the company's choice to host Gab.[25] Peterson left the company in 2019, and said that he left shortly after Monster began a company staff meeting by asking employees to watch the video of the Christchurch mosque shootings, which he said would prove to them that the attack had been faked.[27] Pollock had also resigned by Summer 2020, citing ideological differences.[26]

In September 2022, Monster stepped down as CEO and installed Brian Royce as his successor.[28] After repaying debts to avoid litigation, and amid allegations of financial misconduct by Monster, on June 8, 2023, Epik.com and its associated domain registrar platform were sold to Epik LLC.[29][17] Epik LLC is owned by Registered Agents Inc., a registered agent company beneficially owned by Dan Keen that enables companies to mask their true owners by using fictitious personas.[17][18][30][31] The sale was finalized in January 2024 after ICANN approved the transfer.[32]

Acquisitions

[edit]

In February 2019, it was announced that Epik had acquired BitMitigate, an American cybersecurity company based in Vancouver, Washington. BitMitigate protects websites against potential threats including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The company continues to operate as a division of Epik, and BitMitigate's founder Nicholas Lim briefly served as Epik's chief technology officer.[6]

Epik acquired web hosting company Sibyl Systems Ltd. in the second quarter of 2019.[33][34][35][better source needed] Sibyl Systems was founded on October 22, 2018, and according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was possibly based in Norway or in England.[36][37] Shortly after the company was founded, it began providing hosting services to Gab, which had just been terminated service by its previous web host due to the service's use by the perpetrator of the October 27, 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Sibyl Systems was described in a February 2019 profile by the SPLC as a "shadowy operation with little transparency on its website, a murky history of ownership and no fixed base of operations".[37]

Termination of services to Epik

[edit]

When Epik began providing services to 8chan in August 2019, after the imageboard was taken offline by its host when it was discovered that the perpetrator of the 2019 El Paso shooting allegedly posted his manifesto on the site, several service providers stopped providing services to Epik. Later on the day Epik began servicing 8chan, Epik's primary hardware and connectivity provider, Voxility, terminated their relationship with the company, briefly taking 8chan and other Epik customers offline.[38] That week, when Amazon was informed they were hosting a Gab subdomain, Amazon took down the site and began working with Epik to make sure they were not indirectly providing support to 8chan. However, Amazon continued to provide services to Epik. On August 9, cloud hosting provider Linode informed Epik they would be terminating services to the company.[39]

In October 2020, financial services provider PayPal terminated service for Epik due to financial risk concerns relating to the company's alternative currency called "Masterbucks", which can be used to purchase services from Epik or can be exchanged for U.S. currency.[40] Mashable alleged that PayPal's concerns were related to the potential for money laundering, and that PayPal terminated service because Epik allegedly had not taken the proper legal steps to offer an alternate currency after being made aware of the issue a month prior. Mashable also reported that the termination was partly due to concerns by PayPal that the site was encouraging tax evasion by advertising the "tax advantages" of using Masterbucks.[40][41] Epik subsequently published what Mashable described as "a series of unhinged open letters" targeting "PayPal, Hunter Biden, Bloomberg News, and several Avengers" and accusing PayPal of terminating service because they were biased against conservatives.[41]

Data breach

[edit]
Main article: 2021 Epik data breach

In September and October 2021, hackers identifying themselves as a part of the Anonymous hacktivist group published a large amount of data obtained from Epik in a series of three releases. On September 13, 2021, the group published a press release announcing they had obtained access to data including domain purchase and transfer details, account credentials and logins, payment history, employee emails, and unidentified private keys.[14] The hackers claimed they had obtained "a decade's worth of data", including all customer data and records for all domains ever hosted or registered through the company, and which included poorly encrypted passwords and other sensitive data stored in plaintext.[14][42] The Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) organization announced later that day that they were working to curate the leaked data for public download, and said that it consisted of "180 gigabytes of user, registration, forwarding and other information".[43] Journalists and security researchers subsequently confirmed the veracity of the hack and the types of data that had been exposed.[44][42][15][22] An engineer performing an impact assessment for an Epik client told The Daily Dot that "They are fully compromised end-to-end ... Maybe the worst I've ever seen in my 20-year career". The data was later confirmed to include approximately 15 million unique email addresses, which belonged both to customers and non-customers whose data had been scraped from WHOIS records.[45] Anonymous released additional data on September 29 and on October 4. The second release contained 300 gigabytes of bootable disk images and API keys for third-party services used by Epik; the third contained additional disk images and data belonging to the Republican Party of Texas, an Epik customer.[46]

On September 13, the day the breach was announced and the first portion of data was released, Epik said in statements to news outlets that they were "not aware of any breach".[43][47] When the company did not acknowledge the breach, the attackers vandalized Epik's support website.[15] On September 15, the company sent an email to customers notifying them of "an alleged security incident".[44] Epik CEO Rob Monster confirmed the hack in a September 16 public video conference, which The Daily Dot described as "chaotic and bizarre" and which Le Monde characterized as "possibly one of the strangest responses to a computer security incident in history".[48][22] The company publicly confirmed the breach on September 17, and began emailing customers to inform them on September 19.[45]

Services to far-right websites

[edit]

Epik is known for providing services to websites with far-right content, such as the social network Gab, video hosting service BitChute, and conspiracy theory website InfoWars.[2][7][49] It was described in 2019 by Vice as "a safehaven for the extreme right" and in 2021 by The Seattle Times as "a home for far-right websites" because of its willingness to host far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.[2][50][51] In 2021, The Daily Telegraph wrote that Epik was "a safe harbour for websites said to be enabling the spread far-right extremism and carrying Neo-Nazi content";[26] the same year, Fortune called the company the "right wing's best friend online".[10] NPR reported in February 2021 that "when websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet, the sites often turn to [Epik] for a lifeline."[21]

Epik has provided services for websites, platforms, and groups including Parler, 8chan, Gab, BitChute, Patriots.win, The Daily Stormer, InfoWars, One America News Network, AR15.com, Kiwi Farms, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers.[9] Bobby Allyn writing for NPR has described the websites Epik services: "Spend a few minutes on these sites, conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, vaccines and mass shootings are not hard to find, not to mention a steady stream of bigoted content about Jews, women and people of color."[21]

Epik describes itself as a protector of free speech, and its past CEO Rob Monster defended its decisions to host extremist content as being a part of Epik's commitment to "welcome all views, without bias or preference".[7][2] Monster has said he is repudiating "cancel culture" and Big Tech.[21] In May 2019, the Counter Extremism Project's Joshua Fisher-Birch criticized Epik for this stance, saying that, "while Epik portrays this as a noble exercise in anti-censorship, they're making a business decision to continue to amplify voices calling for violence."[2] In February 2021, Michael Edison Hayden of the SPLC said that although hate speech can be found throughout the internet, including on mainstream social networks like Facebook and Twitter, "The difference is there are people with terroristic ambitions plotting out in the open, producing propaganda that they seek to use to kind of encourage violence. And those are the kind of websites Rob Monster is willing to pick up."[21]

Parler

[edit]
See also: Parler

In January 2021, the alt-tech social network Parler transferred its domain name registration to Epik, following the termination of its hosting and support services by other providers on account of it being "overrun" with death threats and celebrations of violence.[60][61] According to Fortune, Epik provided Parler with advice on running the service, including adding moderators, improving systems to detect harmful posts, and changing their terms of service.[10]

8chan

[edit]
See also: 8chan

On August 5, 2019, Epik competitor Cloudflare announced that in the wake of the 2019 El Paso shooting they would no longer be providing services to 8chan, a far-right imageboard known as a location for hateful content and child sexual abuse material,[62][63] which the perpetrator of the shooting had allegedly used immediately prior to the attack to post a manifesto justifying his actions.[64] The same day that 8chan was removed from Cloudflare, Epik began providing hosting services, and Monster released a statement explaining their decision. Later that day, Epik's primary hardware and connectivity provider Voxility banned Epik from renting their server space.[38] Voxility's vice president of business development stated, "We have made the connection that at least two or three of the latest mass shootings in the U.S. were connected with [Epik and BitMitigate]. At some point, somebody needed to make the decision on where the limit is between what is illegal and what is freedom of speech and today it had to be us."[65] The Voxility ban took 8chan offline, along with The Daily Stormer and other Epik customers. On August 6, Epik reversed course and announced that they would not provide hosting services to 8chan; on August 7, Ars Technica noted that Epik had only ceased hosting their content and was still providing 8chan with DNS services.[66][52]

Gab

[edit]
See also: Gab (social network)

Epik received media attention in early November 2018 for registering Gab, an American alt-tech social networking service known for its far-right userbase, after it was ousted by GoDaddy for allowing "content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people". This came shortly after it was revealed that the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting had used the service to post "hateful content".[3][53][67][68] Tal Moore, a member of Epik's board, resigned in December 2018 over the company's involvement with Gab.[4] On November 7, 2018, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro sent a subpoena to Epik requesting "any and all documents which are related in any way to Gab" after Gab registered its domains onto Epik.[69][49] Gab posted screenshots of the subpoena letter in a tweet on the day the subpoena was sent, despite being asked to keep the letter confidential.[69][49] The tweet was deleted hours later.[69][49] In an email statement to Ars Technica, Monster stated that "the news of the subpoena was not intended for public consumption" and that "we are cooperating with their inquiry".[49]

Patriots.win

[edit]
Main article: r/The_Donald § Patriots.win

Epik provides hosting to Patriots.win, previously known as TheDonald.win, the independent far-right web forum that was created as a successor to the r/The_Donald subreddit banned by Reddit in June 2020.[70][71][11] The website has been labeled "a magnet for extreme discourse" by the Financial Times.[11] It has been likened to other clients of Epik's, Gab and 8chan, as those sites were also created to bypass hate speech policies on more mainstream sites.[72]

According to a January 16, 2021 report from the Wall Street Journal, Epik had threatened to take TheDonald.win offline over the forum failing to remove white supremacist, racist, and violent content. The Journal also reported that Jody Williams, TheDonald.win's owner, had received multiple requests from the FBI for user information due to threatening posts. Williams had struggled to moderate the forum's racist, antisemitic, and violent posts over the prior months, and some of TheDonald.win's volunteer moderators had responded by thwarting Williams's efforts to take down the violent and objectionable content on the forum. Williams and his family had also received daily death threats from the users he banned from the forum.[12] On January 20, 2021, due to an internal power struggle over the TheDonald.win domain between the moderators and Williams, a new forum called Patriots.win was created and TheDonald.win was shut down by Williams on January 21.[13][73] As of January 21, 2021, Epik was providing services to Patriots.win.[13]

The Daily Stormer

[edit]
Main article: The Daily Stormer

In August 2017, BitMitigate, an American cybersecurity company began hosting American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website The Daily Stormer.[55] This was in response to GoDaddy and Cloudflare terminating services for the site after it published an article mocking Heather Heyer, the victim of the vehicle ramming attack that occurred at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that same month.[78] When Epik acquired BitMitigate in 2019, it was still hosting the website. Monster has said that when Epik discovered it was providing services to the website, it stopped doing so. In a 2021 interview with NPR, Monster said that Epik's connection to The Daily Stormer was "regrettable", and that "The greatest cost of acquiring BitMitigate was not the amount of cash that we paid to buy the technology, but the entanglement."[21]

Kiwi Farms

[edit]

After Cloudflare deplatformed the harassment forum Kiwi Farms in November 2022, Epik began providing the website with domain registration services.[19] In January 2024, the new Epik LLC discontinued its registration agreement with Kiwi Farms, citing complaints about child sexual abuse material, doxing, and other terms of service violations.[79][17] Epik claimed on Twitter that it had suspended services to the website after receiving a United States court order, and alleged that the website had been hosting child sexual abuse material. Kiwi Farms responded by threatening Epik with a defamation lawsuit.[17]

Lack of response to reports of alleged illegal activity

[edit]

Wired wrote in 2018 that Epik had a history of not responding to reports of illegal activity on the websites they registered, which the magazine noted as unusual for domain registrars based in the United States.[5] Pharmaceutical watchdog website LegitScript had reported in 2018 that they alerted Epik to the sale of illegal drugs and counterfeit medications on websites registered by Epik, and that Epik had declined to act upon the information without a court order.[80] Epik's CEO at the time, Rob Monster, responded to LegitScript by pointing out that they do take action on domains when court orders are presented, that they could not reasonably assess all claims of illegality themselves, and that they could not merely take LegitScript's claim that something was illegal as the organization represents corporate pharmacy interests.[81][non-primary source needed]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "'The Panama Papers of Hate Groups' Sounds Like a Story". Esquire. 2021-09-27. Archived from the original on 2022-10-02. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Makuch, Ben (May 8, 2019). "The Far Right Has Found a Web Host Savior". Vice. Archived from the original on August 22, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e Baker, Mike (November 4, 2018). "Seattle-area company helps fringe site Gab return in wake of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c Schulberg, Jessica (December 12, 2018). "The Bible-Thumping Tech CEO Who's Proud Of Keeping Neo-Nazis Online". HuffPost. Archived from the original on December 24, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  5. ^ a b c Martineau, Paris (November 6, 2018). "How Right-Wing Social Media Site Gab Got Back Online". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c Macuk, Anthony (February 15, 2019). "Epik buys Vancouver-based BitMitigate". The Columbian. Archived from the original on May 10, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d Hayden, Michael Edison (January 11, 2019). "A Problem of Epik Proportions". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on January 12, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  8. ^ [3][4][5][2][6][7]
  9. ^ a b Epik has provided services for:
  10. ^ a b c d Abril, Danielle (January 19, 2021). "Meet Epik, the right-wing's best friend online". Fortune. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  11. ^ a b c Venkataramakrishnan, Siddharth (August 11, 2020). "Far-right finds new online home in TheDonald.win". Financial Times. Archived from the original on February 23, 2021. Retrieved August 11, 2020.(Subscription required.)
  12. ^ a b c Talley, Ian (January 16, 2021). "Pro-Trump Discussion Board Faces Possible Shutdown Over Violent, Racist Posts". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on March 15, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  13. ^ a b c d Goforth, Claire (January 21, 2021). "Notorious pro-Trump forum rebrands as 'Patriots' after post-Capitol riot infighting". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on February 22, 2021. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  14. ^ a b c Goforth, Claire (September 14, 2021). "Anonymous to release massive data set of the far-right's preferred web hosting company". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on September 14, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2021.
  15. ^ a b c Marks, Joseph (September 17, 2021). "The battle for election security funding is back". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on March 29, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  16. ^ Harwell, Drew; Timberg, Craig; Allam, Hannah (September 21, 2021). "Huge hack reveals embarrassing details of who's behind Proud Boys and other far-right websites". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on September 23, 2021. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
  17. ^ a b c d e Turton, William (February 8, 2024). "The Far Right's Favorite Web Host Has a Shadowy New Owner". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on February 13, 2024. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
  18. ^ a b Turton, William; Mehrotra, Dhruv (March 5, 2024). "Inside the Shadowy Firm Pushing the Limits of Business Privacy". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 2024-03-09. Retrieved 2024-03-10.
  19. ^ a b Makuch, Ben (August 5, 2019). "The Far Right's Internet Protector Goes Down After Taking In 8chan". Vice. Archived from the original on December 1, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  20. ^ Brodkin, Jon (September 7, 2021). "Even Epik says the Texas abortion "whistleblower" site violates its rules". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  21. ^ a b c d e f g h Allyn, Bobby (February 8, 2021). "'Lex Luthor Of The Internet': Meet The Man Keeping Far-Right Websites Alive". NPR. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  22. ^ a b c Leloup, Damien (September 20, 2021). "Epik, l'hébergeur Web favori de l'extrême droite américaine, victime d'un piratage d'ampleur" [Epik, the favorite webhost of the American far right, victim of major hack]. Le Monde (in French). Archived from the original on September 20, 2021. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  23. ^ "Total Domains by Registrar". Registrar Owl. January 2022. Archived from the original on March 19, 2023. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
  24. ^ "Epik is a refuge for the deplatformed far right. Here's why its CEO insists on doing it". CNN. 2021-12-09. Archived from the original on 2023-05-24. Retrieved 2023-07-15.
  25. ^ a b Schulberg, Jessica (December 12, 2018). "The Bible-Thumping Tech CEO Who's Proud Of Keeping Neo-Nazis Online". HuffPost. Archived from the original on December 24, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  26. ^ a b c Meaker, Morgan (January 18, 2021). "Epik: The domain registrar keeping extremist websites online". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  27. ^ a b Turton, William; Brustein, Joshua (April 14, 2021). "A 23-Year-Old Coder Kept QAnon Online When No One Else Would". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on 2021-04-16. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  28. ^ "Epik Holdings, Inc. Founder Appoints Successor CEO" (Press release). EIN Presswire. September 2, 2022. Archived from the original on June 4, 2023. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
  29. ^ Allemann, Andrew (3 June 2023). "Epik is sold". Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News. Archived from the original on 12 June 2023. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  30. ^ Will, Fitzgibbon; Cenziper, Debbie; Crites, Alice (April 5, 2022). "The gatekeepers who help open America to oligarchs and scammers". International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Archived from the original on March 5, 2024. Retrieved March 10, 2024.
  31. ^ Czaban, Kristen (November 25, 2020). "Commercial registered agents bring business with unintended consequences". The Sheridan Press. Archived from the original on February 20, 2024. Retrieved March 10, 2024.
  32. ^ Zournas, Konstantinos (1 February 2024). "ICANN finalizes transfer of EPIK registrar accreditation". OnlineDomain.com. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
  33. ^ Van Dijck, José; de Winkel, Tim; Schäfer, Mirko Tobias (2021-09-23). "Deplatformization and the governance of the platform ecosystem". New Media & Society. 25 (12): 3438–3454. doi:10.1177/14614448211045662. ISSN 1461-4448. S2CID 239078130. Epik purchased webhosting platform Sybil [sic] Systems in 2019 as well as several other related services.
  34. ^ Squire, Megan (July 23, 2019). "Can Alt-Tech Help the Far Right Build an Alternate Internet?". Fair Observer. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  35. ^ Hackney, Raymond (August 30, 2019). "How low will .coms at Epik go? Namepros members will decide". TLD Investors. Archived from the original on October 30, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  36. ^ Dougherty, John; Hayden, Michael Edison (January 24, 2019). "How Gab Has Raised Millions Thanks to This Crowdfunding Company". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on January 27, 2019. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  37. ^ a b Dougherty, John; Hayden, Michael Edison (February 14, 2019). "'No Way' Gab Has 800,000 Users, Web Host Says". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on February 14, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
  38. ^ a b Robertson, Adi (August 5, 2019). "8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 8, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  39. ^ Nickelsburg, Monica (August 8, 2019). "Amazon seeks to root out any ties to 8chan, as tech firms grapple with implications of extremist sites". GeekWire. Archived from the original on October 9, 2020. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  40. ^ a b Fingas, Jon (October 25, 2020). "PayPal drops domain registrar Epik over its 'alternative' digital currency". Engadget. Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  41. ^ a b c Binder, Matt (October 23, 2020). "Home to Proud Boys domain, Gab, and other right-wing sites posts unhinged letters after PayPal cuts ties". Mashable. Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  42. ^ a b Cimpanu, Catalin (September 15, 2021). "Anonymous hacks and leaks data from domain registrar Epik". The Record by Recorded Future. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  43. ^ a b Ropek, Lucas (September 14, 2021). "Anonymous Claims to Have Stolen Huge Trove of Data From Epik, the Right-Wing's Favorite Web Host". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on September 14, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2021.
  44. ^ a b Thalen, Mikael (September 16, 2021). "'Worst I've seen in 20 years': How the Epik hack reveals every secret the far-right tried to hide". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  45. ^ a b Sharma, Ax (September 20, 2021). "Epik data breach impacts 15 million users, including non-customers". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 20, 2021. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  46. ^ Thalen, Mikael (October 4, 2021). "Anonymous releases data on Texas GOP in latest Epik hack dump". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on October 4, 2021. Retrieved October 4, 2021.
  47. ^ Sharma, Ax (September 15, 2021). "Anonymous leaks gigabytes of data from alt-right web host Epik". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 15, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  48. ^ Thalen, Mikael (September 17, 2021). "Epik CEO's live video response to hacking incident descends into complete chaos". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  49. ^ a b c d e Lee, Timothy B. (November 8, 2019). "Gab cries foul as Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas DNS provider". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  50. ^ Long, Katherine Khashimova (January 11, 2021). "Parler, booted by Amazon, takes step toward relaunching with Eastside Firm". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  51. ^ [3][4][5][2][6][7]
  52. ^ a b Salter, Jim (August 7, 2019). "8chan resurfaces, along with The Daily Stormer and another Nazi site". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on August 19, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  53. ^ a b Hess, Amanda (November 30, 2016). "The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 3, 2016. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  54. ^ McKay, Tom (January 21, 2021). "House Oversight Committee Asks FBI to Investigate Parler". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  55. ^ a b [74][75][76][77]
  56. ^ Harwell, Drew; Allam, Hannah; Merrill, Jeremy B.; Timberg, Craig (September 25, 2021). "Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on September 25, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  57. ^ Barr, Kyle (September 7, 2022). "Adrift Online Cesspool Kiwi Farms Finds a New Port, but Its Struggles Are Far From Over". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on November 1, 2022. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  58. ^ Stanley, Alyse (January 17, 2021). "Parler's Back from the Dead With a Domain Registered to Epik, Home to Gab and Daily Stormer". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  59. ^ Hernandez, Salvador (January 13, 2021). "A Major Militia Group Said Its Website Was Taken Down Days After It Sent Members To The Capitol Riots". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on January 13, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  60. ^ Binder, Matt (11 January 2021). "Parler transfers domain name to Epik, domain registrar of choice for the far right". Mashable. Archived from the original on 2021-01-11. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  61. ^ Greenspan, Rachel E. "Parler moves to Epik, a domain registrar known for hosting far-right extremist content". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 12 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  62. ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (August 5, 2019). "8chan: the far-right website linked to the rise in hate crimes". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on August 21, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  63. ^ Howell O'Neill, Patrick (November 17, 2014). "8chan is home to a hive of pedophiles". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on May 26, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  64. ^ Robertson, Adi (August 6, 2019). "Why banning hate sites is so hard". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 11, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  65. ^ Bajak, Frank (August 5, 2019). "Online providers knock 8chan offline after mass shooting". The Associated Press. Archived from the original on August 10, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  66. ^ Macuk, Anthony (August 6, 2019). "Epik reverses course, says BitMitigate will not support 8chan". The Columbian. Archived from the original on January 12, 2021. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  67. ^ Robertson, Adi (September 6, 2017). "Far-right friendly social network Gab is facing censorship controversy". The Verge. Archived from the original on April 4, 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  68. ^ Selyukh, Alina (May 21, 2017). "Feeling Sidelined By Mainstream Social Media, Far-Right Users Jump To Gab". National Public Radio. Archived from the original on November 21, 2018. Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  69. ^ a b c Blake, Andrew (November 9, 2018). "Epik, Gab's newest domain provider, subpoenaed in wake of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting". The Associated Press. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  70. ^ "Trump Supporters Create Social Media Platform Tailored For Them". The Washington Examiner. 26 November 2019. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  71. ^ Lima, Cristiano (June 29, 2020). "Reddit bans pro-Trump forum in crackdown on hate speech". Politico. Archived from the original on June 29, 2020. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  72. ^ Fischer, Sare (November 26, 2019). "The next pro-Trump social media network". Axios. Archived from the original on March 15, 2021. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  73. ^ Timberg, Craig; Harwell, Drew (2021-02-05). "TheDonald's owner speaks out on why he finally pulled plug on hate-filled site". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2023-03-31. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  74. ^ Wines, Michael (July 5, 2015). "White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 24, 2015. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
  75. ^ Pearce, Matt (June 24, 2015). "What happens when a millennial goes fascist? He starts up a neo-Nazi site". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 16, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  76. ^ O'Brien, Luke (January 19, 2018). "American Neo-Nazi Is Using Holocaust Denial As A Legal Defense". HuffPost. Archived from the original on April 23, 2018. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
  77. ^ O'Brein, Luke (December 2017). "The Making of an American Nazi". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 4, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2018. As Anglin would later write, the official policy of his site was: "Jews should be exterminated."
  78. ^ Conger, Kate; Popper, Nathaniel (August 5, 2019). "Behind the Scenes, 8chan Scrambles to Get Back Online". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 10, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  79. ^ Allemann, Andrew (January 24, 2024). "Epik boots Kiwi Farms, vows to boot "absolutist free speech websites"". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved August 15, 2024.
  80. ^ LegitScript (June 2018). The State of Opioid Sales on the Dark Web (PDF) (Report). Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies. p. 40. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-26. Retrieved 2021-07-26.
  81. ^ Monster, Rob (April 24, 2017). "Why I stood up to Legitscript". Epik. Archived from the original on July 10, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epik&oldid=1256155459#Acquisitions"