Bulletproof host Stark Industries evades EU sanctions | Hacker News Reader

Bulletproof host Stark Industries evades EU sanctions

krebsonsecurity.com

211 pointstodsacerdoti90 comments

Sanctions?! What sanctions? They don't even hide, right in the heart of Western Europe:

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...."

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.

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

AFAIK, "Stark" is a fairly common last name (one of my sisters has that last name), meaning "Strong" at least in Sweden and probably the neighbor-countries too.

It's not just "Stark", it's "Stark Industries". That is not a coincidence.

Ah, yeah, if it's identical it's probably too much for a coincidence, I'm not too familiar with comics, didn't realize the full name matched. Replied mostly to the "they use the name of an American super hero" part and thought just "Stark" was a superhero but seems I was wrong :)

Iron Man is the superhero persona of Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark, a businessman and engineer who runs the weapons manufacturing company Stark Industries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man

Given the activities this ISP is notorious for, I take it as sarcasm.

I think they were just hoping that no one would be willing to sanction stark industries lol.

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.

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.

If the majority of users use the system wrong, it's the system that's wrong, not the users.

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.)

Note that the most annoying consent banners come from advertising conglomerates (IAB comes to mind). Well who would think they wouldn’t sabotage anything?

To be fair, I’m sabotaging it from the other side with my ad-blocker.

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.

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.

The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, it's very possible the same places found the tracking data is worth the annoyance.

You're right and I'm torn on whether it's good or bad. In a way that would be at least sensible, but awful for me. The other option is they're making lazy bad choices.

I do wonder what would have happened if the laws were in place first. Would people have been so willing to add all this stuff if it meant putting a big thing over the entire shop?

My other consideration is whether if the owners had to use their site like new customers every time if they'd get pissed off about the stuff covering their actual shops.

Given people A/B test all kinds of minor things I'm sure someone would have hit on it and then it would spread. That's basically the rocket fuel that drives people really into A/B testing everything rather than just hunches "I could find something which increases metrics you wouldn't otherwise think to try".

In either case, I think the net result is bad news for users, good news for people selling things. And of course the sprinkle of "people just making mistakes/guesses" too, but there's no universe that's not going to be found.

The other day I accidentally double-clicked on the the dismiss of a popup and the second click went through to the page underneath and I added an item to cart.

Don't know if it was intentionally positioned like that but I was ready to imagine it was.

I'm not a fan of conspiracy things but I'd definitely agree that would A/B test better.

Petty revenge, torturing their users with malicious compliance.

> I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation.

The EU's own government websites are littered with the obnoxious cookie banners [1].

It's an unbelievably thoughtless and misguided law that has unfortunately ruined the internet. I think a lot of people rightfully blame the EU and they're terrible lawmaking for this nonsense.

https://european-union.europa.eu

I don't seem to get them from outside the EU (even with my adblocker disabled), so a law saying they need an annoying banners I agree to before they go for it might actually be a step up.

At least it has a 'only necessary cookies' option and you don't have to click through a lot of 'settings' to get them off.

It's also easy to hide with the element picker of uBO. It's a DOM element with a straightforward id #cookie-consent-banner

You are not wrong, but the fact that they never follow up and allow the practice makes them complicit. Same for the farcical malicious (non-)compliance of the GFPR through 'legitimate intetest' abuse.

What are they supposed to do about it?

They didn't want user data to be sent to third-parties without consent, so they created a law that made it mandatory for web pages to ask for consent to send the data. Most web pages need to send data to third-parties to be profitable, so they need to ask for consent.

What would the next steps be like? The purpose of the law is to give users the power to consent or not consent. In other words, I can pay for the contents of a web page with my data. Removing that option from me doesn't give me power to do whatever I want with my data: it takes that power away from me instead. That would be bad.

> Most web pages need to send data to third-parties to be profitable

Is that true? If so, it's a sad state of affairs.

Best: Opt out by default.

Runner up: 1-click reject all mandatory

I agree with your sentiment, but it would really be a great step to stop calling these things "cookie banners" and use "consent banners" or "tracking banners". Call them what they are.

Because it is not the means, it is the intent that the GDPR tries to protect you from. The GDPR (and EDP) says that tracking, any tracking not just cookies, requires the consent of the tracked one.

The physical world is like that too!

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.

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

Ars covered it in 2013, it's common in security (Risky Business, OSInt, Krebs) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-t...

It says so in the article. Isp's who ignore authorities and allow anything to happen on their networks.

> 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.

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.

Are you thinking of HP or did they both do it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU

I forgot about the HP one! I distinctly remember there was a Sun too; it was like a backyard shoot.

There was an awesome viral video of someone offloading their frustration and a full mag on an HP printer. Now I can't find the original because it started a trend of copiers.

Sun servers at least got yelled at.

> provide LEO access

Those poor astronauts! ("Law Enforcement Officer", for anyone else not in the know).

Especially helpful hint coz the other thread's talking about Elon </SCNR>

great

inventing new word when we don't need one

Which word did you think was new?

LEO is a very well established term, it's not new.

Thank you for the clarification, that one caught me

Thanks for the replies. Should have RTFA I guess

> Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?

obligatory: https://xkcd.com/1053/ Happy ten thousand day!

Others already answered but while I'm chiming in anyway, I'm not in the hosting industry but IT security (for like ten years, say) and for me it's a very normal term. Maybe precisely because of that niche though; many of us are paranoid

Imagine a rack of servers in some countries where global and even that country's law can't really touch them. "cyber gangs" and the like will use those servers as hosting for their malware and activities.

> even that country's law can't really touch them.

Well, that countries law enforcement could always cut off those servers. It's usually either due to corruption or in case of russia political intent that these servers are kept online.

It kind of depends, a lot of the recent ones are in Myanmar where the state is in not much position to enforce much of anything due to the whole civil war thing.

Interesting that Netherlands seems to be one of these lawless places...?

Yes. One of the biggest providers there is just down the street from The Hague and other law enforcement agencies. I suspect there is some back scratching to get easy wins for specific types of crimes. Long story.

Criminal-friendly

So is the lock on your front door. Some people hide stolen loot behind locked doors!

Are you arguing in good faith? It's a hosting provider that is friendly to criminals and unfriendly to law enforcement - in particular refuses any law enforcement requests, or won't take down obviously malicious services.

> ISPs like Stark are called “bulletproof” providers when they cultivate a reputation for ignoring any abuse complaints or police inquiries about activity on their networks.

I suppose it's just a click bait title, so nothing special

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

What a gang.

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

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.

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