Anonymous Hacks Epik, Releases Data on Right-Wing Hate Groups Using Company's Services
By: Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)
"The Panama Papers of Hate Groups"
I think that's quite clever
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Hacker group Anonymous just spilled the secrets of Epik, purveyor of online services to the extreme right.
By Charles P. Pierce Sep 27, 2021 
JOSEPH PREZIOSOGetty Images
Don't get me started again on how and why Craig Whitlock's great work on the Afghanistan Papers in the Washington Post has vanished so completely from the news cycle, and especially as context for the thousands of pixels expended on this country's departure from that ill-starred adventure. Now, though, there's another story that popped in the Post recently that also deserves a helluva lot more attention than it's received.
The notorious hacker collective Anonymous broke into Epik, an Internet services company beloved by the armed and angry new Republican base. They purloined a massive amount of data on the people who used the company, right down to names and addresses, and they dumped it into the public view. From the Post :
Extremism researchers and political opponents have treated the leak as a Rosetta Stone to the far-right, helping them to decode who has been doing what with whom over several years. Initial revelations have spilled out steadily across Twitter since news of the hack broke last week, often under the hashtag #epikfail, but those studying the material say they will need months and perhaps years to dig through all of it.
The place was a genuine political sewage treatment plant.
Epik, based in the Seattle suburb of Sammamish, has made its name in the Internet world by providing critical Web services to sites that have run afoul of other companies' policies against hate speech, misinformation and advocating violence. Its client list is a roll-call of sites known for permitting extreme posts and that have been rejected by other companies for their failure to moderate what their users post.
Online records show those sites have included 8chan, which was dropped by its providers after hosting the manifesto of a gunman who killed 51 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019; Gab, which was dropped for hosting the antisemitic rants of a gunman who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; and Parler, which was dropped due to lax moderation related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Well, everybody needs a clubhouse, I guess. But these documents, however they were obtained, are a gold mine for the people doing the hard and necessary work of keeping tabs on what has become a more serious threat to the republic than many people are comfortable admitting. And did I mention that the company founder's name is…Monster?
[Robert] Monster also used the moment as a marketing opportunity, saying the files were now "effectively uncensorable," according to screenshots of his tweets and Gab posts from the time. Monster also urged Epik employees to watch the video, which he said would convince them it was faked, Bloomberg News reported.
Monster has defended his work as critical to keeping the Internet uncensored and free, aligning himself with conservative critics who argue that leading technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and YouTube have gone too far in policing content they deem inappropriate.
Monster.
Classic.
Extremism researchers urge careful fact-checking to protect credibility, but the data remains tantalizing for its potential to unmask extremists in public-facing jobs. Emma Best, co-founder of Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit whistleblower group, said some researchers call the Epik hack "the Panama Papers of hate groups," a comparison to the leak of more than 11 million documents that exposed a rogue offshore finance industry. And, like the Panama Papers, scouring the files is labor intensive, with payoffs that could be months away. "A lot of research begins with naming names," Best said. "There's a lot of optimism and feeling of being overwhelmed, and people knowing they're in for the long haul with some of this data."
There are some serious questions concerning what use the mainstream press should make of all this data, given its provenance. A real-estate agent in Florida already lost his job when his online activity, which included trying to register several domain names apparently connected to Holocaust denialism, was made public. It's a one-stop shop. It's an open window into one of the most serious threats to the stability of the republic since South Carolinians got annoyed with the folks inside Fort Sumter. Given the cross-pollination between the militant right and the anti-vaccination community, you can even argue that there is a public-health aspect to the leak. You can say what you will about how we know what we know, but you cannot say that it's not a story. More, I am sure, to follow.
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The January 6 Commission Must Remain Merciless Charles P. PierceCharles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io Advertisement - Continue Reading Below More FromPolitics With Charles P. Pierce Warren Grilled the Two Chairmen If Pence and Tucker Want to Move to Hungary... Advertisement - Continue Reading Below WSJ Drops a Bomb on the Federal Judiciary Republicans Refuse to Cooperate in Governing Massachusetts Has Anti-Vaxxers, Too Fighting the Cure Is Now a Republican Litmus Test The Entire Future of Self-Government Is at Stake It's Been 10 Years Since I Started This Blog Cyber Ninjas Proved Biden Actually Won By More The January 6 Commission Must Remain Merciless
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Violence, hate, and trolls!
Oh my!
The description of many on the right.
And they skip along the Yellow Brick Road leading to their orange wizard.
Glad you got my reference
I am the great & powerful con....
Good one!
Sad to say, it will probably take a mass casualty event perpetrated by these hate groups before the threat is taken seriously by the public.
Like Oklahoma City?
Mass shootings are becoming old news due to their frequency, and most of those are perpetrated by right wingers nowadays.
So a list of people that participate in 8chan and parlor.