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Comment by dabeeeenster | Hacker News Reader

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

> 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

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.

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.

> 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.

Thanks for the replies. Should have RTFA I guess

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

> 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

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.

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