> Hurricane Electric, one of the largest ISPs in the entire world, has blocked 1776 Hosting's IPs which very briefly (~2 days) was a way to connect to the Kiwi Farms.
> Hurricane Electric admits that blocking an entire subnet of IP addresses like this is unprecedented. They refuse to elaborate as to why they've done this.
> HE is an extremely old, extremely large provider which owns an enormous share of all fiber optic cable in the world. Their connectivity between smaller ISPs is unparalleled. Their bandwidth is over 100Tbps. If every nerve in your body is connected to each other, much like two computers on the Internet, then Hurricane Electric would effectively be your spine - hence why they are called the Internet Backbone. The Internet Backbone is telling a small forum of a few thousand daily users that they may not exist, they will not explain why, and they are not open to meeting halfway.
> However, our relationship with HE was indirect. 1776 Hosting had a relationship with an ISP, who itself had a relationship with another ISP, who has a relationship with Hurricane Electric. HE did not terminate a relationship with me, they instead obstructed my providers from receiving traffic they specifically requested because Hurricane Electric does not allow it, without stated reason, and without appeal.
> What Hurricane Electric has not considered is that this relationship took place in Washington state. Washington is one of the few states which has state-level common carrier provisions for the Internet.
> This cause of action cannot be brought by individuals or companies. It must be brought by the Attorney General's Office in Washington. My providers have filed complaints with the Attorney General's Office in Washington. I am preparing to do the same via representation.
> Hurricane Electric's political decision making and deliberate meddling with the Internet is the most dramatic action I have ever seen in the degradation of the Internet and the erosion of our personal liberties. The only path forward is for the Internet to be regulated as a common carrier. If we allow this behavior to continue, no website may exist without the collective assent of a dozen megacorporations joined at the hip.
Latest update post:
> The AGO has confirmed it has received complaints from Incognet and Crunchbits and that the complaints fall under the scope of their office. I am filing mine this week.
> Residents of Washington may be needed soon.
> Edit 1: Small update but when we tried to route another /48 off my subnet it was also blocked immediately before ever being pushed live as an AAAA record. In short, this means the company is actively hawking my subnets and terminating them as soon as they go up to deliberately deprive Washington residents of Internet access to websites of their choice.
> Edit 2: Actually, they blocked my /32, which means Hurricane Electric is blocking 65,536 network blocks containing 65,536 subscriber blocks each with each subscriber block containing 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 possible addresses. With this number, I could assign each gram of the Earth's total mass 74 IP addresses each. They have done this specifically to accomplish keeping Washington residents off the Kiwi Farms.
> The Internet Backbone is telling a small forum of a few thousand daily users that they may not exist, they will not explain why, and they are not open to meeting halfway.
What is the middle ground between civilised people and a bunch of shit bird drop kicks who should have been swallowed at conception?
The middle ground is upholding the principle of net neutrality, with the large transit providers maintaining freedom of information exchange rather than doling out extrajudicial punishments for speech they may deem undesirable.
Net neutrality long assumed that backbones would merely slow down traffic, not block it entirely for opaque reasons. They're only supposed to intervene to prevent technical disruptions. I haven't spent that much time looking at KF, but they do appear to follow US law and will ban people who break it (and cooperate with US law enforcement). The site is a bit of a corner case: legal but extremely reviled. They use incredibly foul language, and they seem quite proud to be on the "wrong side of history". But I still contend that no amount of mere unpopularity should knock a site entirely off the internet.
I don't think you get to take the "well this is technically legal, let's give them the benefit of the doubt" argument when your members actions have directly caused three people to kill themselves.
I am aware of the claims and the "news" sources regurgitating them. The evidence Kiwifarms is responsible for anything is remarkably shaky (lots of use of the term "has been linked to" and no real evidence for anything).
Kiwifarms, now banned, official twitter page said their goal was “exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes”. ( Source: https://archive.is/jYp5p ).
I think Kiwifarms is (borderline) criminal. Null, the admin of the site, outright said he was ok with users posting stolen financial information, such as Social Security Numbers and Credit cards. Source: https://archive.is/0fOcS . There are many examples of private financial information being posted on the site.
I would describe them as operating with a paper thin layer of "plausible" deniability. Officially you aren't allowed to harass or interact with the targets. But posting their home address, stolen passwords, phone numbers, and information about relatives is all allowed.
But even the rule against interacting with "lolcows" (called "cowtipping") is haphazardly enforced. For example, one user had sex with a "lolcow" and posted photos. The admin explicitly said they would allow the content to remain up: https://archive.is/zYnpK#35%
For those who aren't aware, kiwifarms is a website that was ostensibly something like a gossip forum, but in practice basically ended up being used for cyberstalking and harassment. They would frequently harass and doxx people. Their wikipedia page covers parts of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
It definitely facilitates the commission of crimes, but doing that isn't a crime itself unless there is a clear conspiracy. It's just being irresponsible.
Are you sure that the requirement for a clear conspiracy is present in the laws in all 50 states and federally?
For instance, 18 U.S. Code § 1028 (a)(2) appears to criminalize transfer of identification documents as long as you know it was stolen or unlawfully obtained.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1028
It's about neutrality in general. This isn't anything new, here's an article from the EFF back in 2015 about how free speech is protected and censorship prevented by upholding net neutrality principles:
Point is that this should apply to all network traffic, including websites where people are there saying things you disagree with.
If whatever they're gossiping about on Kiwi Farms is really that bad, then that's for law enforcement and the courts to sort out, not rogue network engineers with strong opinions.
It's a matter of principle, similar to how your water company isn't allowed to cut off service if you say something they disagree with or if you host a bunch of people who say unsavoury things on your property.
Also it's conservatives who have been decimating net neutrality in the US in recent years, so I'm not quite sure why you went on that tangent in assuming that my political positions align with theirs. Let's stay on topic please.
The ability to doxx people, stalk them and trigger them to commit suicide, as it happens, is not considered essential for human life. I mean unless of course you're a kiwifarms loser who considers that "life".
The water company was just one example of a utility that's mandated by law to provide impartial service to its customers.
Perhaps a more relevant parallel can be found in telephone companies. Every day, people call each other and have the most unsavoury and obnoxious conversations, at least by other people's standards, and they can't get their service cut off for doing so. Even if others are listening in and happen to be offended.
ILEC telco service mandates are due to the regional monopolies that tend to form around them. IP transit providers are not in a similar situation; you can typically find several of them competing for your business in any carrier-neutral datacenter. The Washington net neutrality law being referenced in relation to the AGO complaint was developed in the context of residential Internet service and applies only to broadband providers, which is a term defined in the law, and which Hurricane and most other IP transit providers do not qualify as.
That's very interesting. Do you think there may be a chance the AGO would interpret these definitions more broadly, or is this attempt by 1776 Hosting and their upstream providers to have this law invoked against HE just entirely futile?
In my opinion, it's entirely futile. I don't know why stephenr's sibling comment was flagged; I think he suggests the best remedy available to you at this time.
For example, Kiwifarms sometimes may cross the line here:
>Harassment - use of Hurricane's network to harass or threaten (in the legal sense of those terms) any other person is prohibited.
Kiwifarms frequently violates the latter part of this clause (and on occasion the former part):
>Advocacy of violence against a specific person or class of people is prohibited.
Advocacy for violence against transgender people as a whole is relatively common, and on occasion advocacy for violence against specific individuals is seen.
"no website may exist without the collective assent of a dozen megacorporations joined at the hip."
This is already the case.
That said, if we must accept the premise that such voluntary censorship is acceptable, then I welcome any and all such action against kiwifarms. May its users be hounded off the internet entirely.
I think we should not accept that premise, and instead require the backbone transit providers to uphold net neutrality.
It's the same principle as water and electricity and other utility companies not being permitted to cut off service to those whose speech they disagree with.
Consider asking for help with route visibility on NANOG, provided that your discussion is "focused on operational and technical content only". Avoid speculation about why your route is not visible, and just work on debugging the problem.
30 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 65.8 ms ] thread> Hurricane Electric, one of the largest ISPs in the entire world, has blocked 1776 Hosting's IPs which very briefly (~2 days) was a way to connect to the Kiwi Farms.
> Hurricane Electric admits that blocking an entire subnet of IP addresses like this is unprecedented. They refuse to elaborate as to why they've done this.
> HE is an extremely old, extremely large provider which owns an enormous share of all fiber optic cable in the world. Their connectivity between smaller ISPs is unparalleled. Their bandwidth is over 100Tbps. If every nerve in your body is connected to each other, much like two computers on the Internet, then Hurricane Electric would effectively be your spine - hence why they are called the Internet Backbone. The Internet Backbone is telling a small forum of a few thousand daily users that they may not exist, they will not explain why, and they are not open to meeting halfway.
> However, our relationship with HE was indirect. 1776 Hosting had a relationship with an ISP, who itself had a relationship with another ISP, who has a relationship with Hurricane Electric. HE did not terminate a relationship with me, they instead obstructed my providers from receiving traffic they specifically requested because Hurricane Electric does not allow it, without stated reason, and without appeal.
> What Hurricane Electric has not considered is that this relationship took place in Washington state. Washington is one of the few states which has state-level common carrier provisions for the Internet.
> This cause of action cannot be brought by individuals or companies. It must be brought by the Attorney General's Office in Washington. My providers have filed complaints with the Attorney General's Office in Washington. I am preparing to do the same via representation.
> Hurricane Electric's political decision making and deliberate meddling with the Internet is the most dramatic action I have ever seen in the degradation of the Internet and the erosion of our personal liberties. The only path forward is for the Internet to be regulated as a common carrier. If we allow this behavior to continue, no website may exist without the collective assent of a dozen megacorporations joined at the hip.
Latest update post:
> The AGO has confirmed it has received complaints from Incognet and Crunchbits and that the complaints fall under the scope of their office. I am filing mine this week.
> Residents of Washington may be needed soon.
> Edit 1: Small update but when we tried to route another /48 off my subnet it was also blocked immediately before ever being pushed live as an AAAA record. In short, this means the company is actively hawking my subnets and terminating them as soon as they go up to deliberately deprive Washington residents of Internet access to websites of their choice.
> Edit 2: Actually, they blocked my /32, which means Hurricane Electric is blocking 65,536 network blocks containing 65,536 subscriber blocks each with each subscriber block containing 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 possible addresses. With this number, I could assign each gram of the Earth's total mass 74 IP addresses each. They have done this specifically to accomplish keeping Washington residents off the Kiwi Farms.
> https://routing.he.net/index.php?cmd=display_prefix_list&as=...
> https://archive.is/L7dD4
What is the middle ground between civilised people and a bunch of shit bird drop kicks who should have been swallowed at conception?
As soon as a bunch of losers who stalk people for fun get kicked offline they suddenly want to adopt the phrase "net neutrality" for their cause.
People like you are exactly why every rule has exceptions. You're the embodiment of yelling "FIRE! in a crowded theatre".
this lie gets repeated so often and it's disappointing how willing people are to lap it up without an ounce of critical thought.
https://www.insider.com/chris-chan-arrest-what-is-kiwifarms-...
I think Kiwifarms is (borderline) criminal. Null, the admin of the site, outright said he was ok with users posting stolen financial information, such as Social Security Numbers and Credit cards. Source: https://archive.is/0fOcS . There are many examples of private financial information being posted on the site.
I would describe them as operating with a paper thin layer of "plausible" deniability. Officially you aren't allowed to harass or interact with the targets. But posting their home address, stolen passwords, phone numbers, and information about relatives is all allowed.
But even the rule against interacting with "lolcows" (called "cowtipping") is haphazardly enforced. For example, one user had sex with a "lolcow" and posted photos. The admin explicitly said they would allow the content to remain up: https://archive.is/zYnpK#35%
For those who aren't aware, kiwifarms is a website that was ostensibly something like a gossip forum, but in practice basically ended up being used for cyberstalking and harassment. They would frequently harass and doxx people. Their wikipedia page covers parts of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
For instance, 18 U.S. Code § 1028 (a)(2) appears to criminalize transfer of identification documents as long as you know it was stolen or unlawfully obtained. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1028
The laws on credit card fraud require "unlawful or fraudulent intent" though. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1644
Even discounting the above, you could imagine why a provider may not want to serve a website that engages in that sort of borderline illegal behavior.
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-urges-federal-appeals...
Point is that this should apply to all network traffic, including websites where people are there saying things you disagree with.
If whatever they're gossiping about on Kiwi Farms is really that bad, then that's for law enforcement and the courts to sort out, not rogue network engineers with strong opinions.
Also it's conservatives who have been decimating net neutrality in the US in recent years, so I'm not quite sure why you went on that tangent in assuming that my political positions align with theirs. Let's stay on topic please.
The ability to doxx people, stalk them and trigger them to commit suicide, as it happens, is not considered essential for human life. I mean unless of course you're a kiwifarms loser who considers that "life".
Perhaps a more relevant parallel can be found in telephone companies. Every day, people call each other and have the most unsavoury and obnoxious conversations, at least by other people's standards, and they can't get their service cut off for doing so. Even if others are listening in and happen to be offended.
For example, Kiwifarms sometimes may cross the line here: >Harassment - use of Hurricane's network to harass or threaten (in the legal sense of those terms) any other person is prohibited.
Kiwifarms frequently violates the latter part of this clause (and on occasion the former part): >Advocacy of violence against a specific person or class of people is prohibited.
Advocacy for violence against transgender people as a whole is relatively common, and on occasion advocacy for violence against specific individuals is seen.
This is already the case. That said, if we must accept the premise that such voluntary censorship is acceptable, then I welcome any and all such action against kiwifarms. May its users be hounded off the internet entirely.
It's the same principle as water and electricity and other utility companies not being permitted to cut off service to those whose speech they disagree with.
https://www.nanog.org/nanog-mailing-list/nanog-mailing-lists...
It wasn't a software glitch; it was an intentional action.