More Glitches in the ATS Matrix

[TSK]

The ATS rumormill says the buyer of the website has expatriated and is unlikely to return to the US any time soon. The company associated with the buyers has supposedly stated that the guy is AWAL. The rumormill also says the guy was a Bitcoin bro.

So, I'm thinking the guy had previously engaged in some illegal activity concerning Bitcoin like maybe not reporting earnings on taxes, which the IRS is now prodecuting. Maybe he got a letter in the mail from the IRS and decided to take his Bitcoin and go into hiding.

If he is running from the law it's doubtful he'll be touching that site any time soon. It would also explain the strange departures of his sysadmins and the weird blowout when all this started if say for example the owner went AWAL and the sysadmin was not paid, perhaps the admin decided to trash the site because he wasn't paid. It is known that the Darko character was recruiting shit-stirrers from Reddit. I think the shoe fits.

Owner probably has the site attached to an account with cash in it with the registration and hosting on auto-pay given that the renewal processed on the final day before expiration. I've used GoDaddy before and that is their typical renewal process.

So, I think something happened and the captain has abandoned the ship and left crew and passengers behind.

I've spoke to Darko. I just don't think he cares. I wish I had more reason than that, but it doesn't much sound like he gives a shit about ATS. I think what the owner of MPS fed me was all horseshit, and that Darko was never out of the country to begin with. MPS has a relationship with InfoWars, and a very lucrative one. Although I don't think Jones has anything to do with this. I think MPS bought it, realized it wasn't worth their time, sold it to his friend Darko who encouraged him to buy ATS in the first place, and it ended up being too much for Darko to handle. He has other business ventures, albeit unsuccessful ones, but it sounds like he's gearing up for a career change. That leaves ATS hanging in the balance, I'm afraid.

[l0st]

I've spoke to Darko. I just don't think he cares. I wish I had more reason than that, but it doesn't much sound like he gives a shit about ATS. I think what the owner of MPS fed me was all horseshit, and that Darko was never out of the country to begin with. MPS has a relationship with InfoWars, and a very lucrative one. Although I don't think Jones has anything to do with this. I think MPS bought it, realized it wasn't worth their time, sold it to his friend Darko who encouraged him to buy ATS in the first place, and it ended up being too much for Darko to handle. He has other business ventures, albeit unsuccessful ones, but it sounds like he's gearing up for a career change. That leaves ATS hanging in the balance, I'm afraid.

Well he can give to me and I'll run it. At least I know how lol. I'm not a buyer though. Site makes no money. I wouldn't need to hire anyone to fix it, nor would I need a place to host it as I already own such infrastructure.

[KKLoco]

I've spoke to Darko. I just don't think he cares. I wish I had more reason than that, but it doesn't much sound like he gives a shit about ATS. I think what the owner of MPS fed me was all horseshit, and that Darko was never out of the country to begin with. MPS has a relationship with InfoWars, and a very lucrative one. Although I don't think Jones has anything to do with this. I think MPS bought it, realized it wasn't worth their time, sold it to his friend Darko who encouraged him to buy ATS in the first place, and it ended up being too much for Darko to handle. He has other business ventures, albeit unsuccessful ones, but it sounds like he's gearing up for a career change. That leaves ATS hanging in the balance, I'm afraid.

“Loue Trouglidite you got trolled” says it all.

The fact that this is still in debate, is comical.

[l0st]

“Loue Trouglidite you got trolled” says it all.

The fact that this is still in debate, is comical.

Also the Simon Grey page it linked to that's not even the same person. So whoever did it doesn't even know their target.

Whoever it is obviously isn't a real busimessman and doesn't care about making money. The NK connection makes s lot of sense.

[FlyersFan]

Are you referring to the way that your on-screen mini-profile sometimes says "FlyersFan was on ATS ten minutes ago"?

That's been an oddity of the software for a number of years now.

No.  I'm saying that it kicked me off totally and I had to resign back in.
I never sign out.  I'm always signed in.
Yet I will be in the middle of posting something ... typing it up .. and POOF ...
I'm signed out.

[FlyingClayDisk]

The thing about the Sony hack which caught my eye was what they did 'before' the actual take down.  They were apparently using some offensive cyberweapons which had been stolen from the NSA earlier by a disgruntled worker (this is documented).  The former NSA worker had tried to hold the NSA hostage and threatened to put the tools up for sale on the internet if he wasn't paid.  No one believed him, so this is what he did, but then no one offered the kind of bitcoin he was seeking.  So, he got even more angry and threatened to give the tools away for free.  This is where the NK's came into the picture, and they snapped up the tools lock, stock and barrel.  The tools were some kind of a zero-day Microsoft backdoor vulnerability, meaning there was no known patch at the time.  (Again, all of this is documented).

Once the NK's got a hold of the tools they used them to infiltrate Sony without their knowledge.  The NK's then spent weeks just probing around inside Sony stealing various stuff (i.e. data, u/n's, p/w's, emails, loads of files, unreleased movie scripts and trailers, etc.).  The NK's eventually started using pieces of this stuff to threaten Sony, but much like the NSA, Sony didn't believe it was real.  So then they released a whole treasure trove of Sony emails (and apparently texts also) from Sony executives.  Some of the released data was pretty embarrassing and incriminating (i.e. salaries, racist discussions, employment discussions, etc.).  This got Sony's attention.  Sony was then scrambling to figure out what was going on, but before they could do anything the take down took place.  Sony was paralyzed around the globe.  The rest was history, and you can read about it all over the web.

What was interesting was those weeks leading up to the take down and how the NK's managed to get access.  What they had done was to take control of several 'abandoned and adrift' lower tier websites (very similar to ATS).  They were just small operators of conspiracy and soft-core porn sites.  The NK's used these sites (unbeknownst to their users) to send out the emails which contained the viruses.  Because the websites were established and small they weren't on blacklists by the big virus scanning companies like macafee, norton and others.  It was a really clever approach, and a pretty advanced one from my perspective.  This is where I think ATS could possibly fit into the picture. 

Again, I don't have any proof that this is actually going on, it's just a theory.  But I've been puzzled how ATS could be surviving without someone at the helm, and this is one possible explanation.  It wasn't the domain renewal which got me to thinking about this, that part was easy, but the day to day hosting costs is what I couldn't explain.  Beyond member traffic, ATS has quite a bit of visitor traffic, and they do have a pretty extensive archive (jacked up as it is) of data from the past 20+ years of operation.  Serving all this up isn't free and, if ATS could be used for some ulterior and nefarious purpose, this sort of makes sense.

One of the other interesting things I stumbled into was what the NK's did to these lower tier websites when they took them over.  One of the first things they did was to lock out all the administrator staff to prevent people from seeing what was going on 'under the hood'.  Sound familiar? 

The bottom line in my mind is this...something is going on.  My worry was/is, if I am even remotely close with my theory, then any user of ATS could be vulnerable to whatever tools and exploits ATS is being used for.  The average user probably doesn't have a whole lot of exposure, but the mods might.

Welp, gotta' go...I need to go run my virus scanners for the 23rd time! 

edit - Just for reference, the Sony hack happened back in 2014, so 10 years ago.  Lots of things have happened since then.  Microsoft has long since patched those original zero-day vulnerabilities.  The NSA eventually went to Microsoft and begrudgingly told them about the exploits (logic being...if they couldn't use them, then no one could).  But who is to say what new ones may have cropped up since then.  The one thing which was so surprising to me was just how far out in front of the curve NK was for being such a seemingly backwards culture from a technology perspective.

[KKLoco]

I've spoke to Darko. I just don't think he cares. I wish I had more reason than that, but it doesn't much sound like he gives a shit about ATS. I think what the owner of MPS fed me was all horseshit, and that Darko was never out of the country to begin with. MPS has a relationship with InfoWars, and a very lucrative one. Although I don't think Jones has anything to do with this. I think MPS bought it, realized it wasn't worth their time, sold it to his friend Darko who encouraged him to buy ATS in the first place, and it ended up being too much for Darko to handle. He has other business ventures, albeit unsuccessful ones, but it sounds like he's gearing up for a career change. That leaves ATS hanging in the balance, I'm afraid.

Well, if this is the case, Darko is an even bigger idiot than I thought. I have a recent example of this in my life. About two years ago I needed to buy a couch. In order to get a quality one, you’ve got to spend $5k or so. I didn’t want to spend that, as I knew I’d be moving soon, and other reasons. So I decided to buy used. I found a couch that someone had purchased 6 months previously, brand new for $5700. I bought them for $2k. Long story short, I ended up hating the couches. They were not comfortable, and weren’t my style. 

When I moved, did I just leave them at the house, essentially squandering the $2k I spent on them? No, I placed an ad, and got some of my money back out of them. I had them for a year. I was able to sell hem for $1k. I took a $1k loss in that year. But at least I got some money out of them. AND someone else was able to use them. 

Why doesn’t Darko get a return on his investment? Did you ask him if he’d be willing to sell it? The part that doesn’t make sense about this, is I don’t believe Darko has the money to pay the hosting fees. So who is paying for those?

As I previously mentioned, I watched some of his videos on FB. I don’t believe Darko is a successful businessman. He’s more like a useless tool that values his own opinion far too much….

[FlyingClayDisk]

BTW...I am not suggesting the NK's have ATS, but given how what the NK's did has been widely published, someone else could, using similar tactics and tools.

This was all my point was.

[KKLoco]

BTW...I am not suggesting the NK's have ATS, but given how what the NK's did has been widely published, someone else could, using similar tactics and tools.

This was all my point was.

When speaking of NK, are we talking about North Korea? Forgive me, I’m not following the lingo.

[FlyingClayDisk]

When speaking of NK, are we talking about North Korea? Forgive me, I’m not following the lingo.

Yes.