Summary: this is just a red herring. Wakatime owner likely registered the domains just after this article was published as a publicity stunt. Fair play though.
As raised at: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36280666, many, but not all, of the domains currently redirect to wakatime.com/ as of 2023, and apparently they were taken up in 2013 (TODO how to confirm that). TODO what is the explanation for that? Some examples that do:But some failed resolution examples:Even more suspiciously, according to his LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alanhamlett/, the owner of Wakatime, Alan Hamlett, worked at WhiteHat Security, Inc from Aug 2011 - Sep 2013. The company was then acquired by Synopsys in 2022. Holy crap!!! As shown at: web.archive.org/web/20131013193406/https://www.whitehatsec.com/ that company made website security tools. Did that dude use the tools to find the vulnerabilty and then just gobble up all the domains??? What a fucking legend if he did!!!
Let's try:
Running e.g.gives:so we see that he must have setup redirection with Namecheap as mentioned at: www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/385/2237/how-to-redirect-a-url-for-a-domain/
curl -vvv dedrickonline.com* Trying 162.255.119.197:80...
* Connected to dedrickonline.com (162.255.119.197) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: dedrickonline.com
> User-Agent: curl/7.88.1
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
< Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2023 20:30:19 GMT
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
< Content-Length: 55
< Connection: keep-alive
< Location: https://wakatime.com
< X-Served-By: Namecheap URL Forward
< Server: namecheap-nginx
<
<a href='https://wakatime.com'>Moved Permanently</a>.
* Connection #0 to host dedrickonline.com left intactLet's also try DNS history
- whoisrequest.com/history/:
- tools.whoisxmlapi.com/whois-history-search
- dedrickonline.com:
- CIA (registrar: Godaddy, registrant name: domainsbyproxy.com)
- Created Date: October 27, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Updated Date: October 28, 2013 00:00:00 UTC
- Expires Date: October 27, 2014 00:00:00 UTC
- Alan (namecheap):
- CIA (registrar: Godaddy, registrant name: domainsbyproxy.com)
- activegaminginfo.com:
- CIA (Network Solutions, registrant name: LLC. Corral, Elizabeth|ATTN ACTIVEGAMINGINFO.COM|care of Network Solutions)
- Created Date: January 26, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Updated Date: November 27, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Expires Date: January 26, 2012 00:00:00 UTC
- Alan:
- CIA (Network Solutions, registrant name: LLC. Corral, Elizabeth|ATTN ACTIVEGAMINGINFO.COM|care of Network Solutions)
- iraniangoalkicks.com:
- iraniangoals.com:
- CIA (registrar: Godaddy, registrant name: domainsbyproxy.com):
- Reuters:
- Created Date: September 29, 2022 11:16:09 UTC
- Updated Date: September 29, 2022 11:16:09 UTC
- Expires Date: September 29, 2023 11:16:09 UTC
- dedrickonline.com:
So these suggest Alan might have just come along in 2023 way after the 2022 Reuters article and did the same basic IP range search that Ciro is doing now, so possibly no new tech. Let's ask... twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1668369786865164289
Searching tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search with term "Corral, Elizabeth" gave no results unfortunately.
Basic search under tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search for "Corral" also empty. They can't see their own data? Ah, need advanced. Marked "Historic" and selected "Corral, Elizabeth", ony one hit, activegaminginfo.com.
Sources of whois history include:
- whois-history.whoisxmlapi.com/ from whoisXMLAPI. Notably they also have historical reverse WHOIS... tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search but it needs credits. TODO we need to squeeze this a but further at some point.
When that data comes in JSON format as from whoisXMLAPI, we are going to just dump it in github.com/cirosantilli/media/blob/master/cia-2010-covert-communication-websites/whois.json
The vast majority of domains seem to be registered either via domainsbyproxy.com which likely intgrates with Godaddy and is widely used, and seems to give zero infromation at all about the registrar.
A much smaller number however uses other methods, some of which sometimes leak a little bit of data:Big question: webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/13237/how-do-you-view-domain-whois-history DomainTools also has it.
- Network Solutions, LLC. These sometimes give a tiny bit of information: one name. Other times they are hidden behind Perfect Privacy, LLC. Examples>Pulley, Tammy
- alljohnny.net: L. Glaze. tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search "Glaze, L." has
- webstorageforme.com. web.archive.org/web/20130917230604/http://webstorageforme.com/ broken, cqcounter.com/whois/www/webstorageforme.com.html blank
- welcometonyc.net. Hit!
- international-smallbusiness.com. Same IP as alljohnny.net and quite possibly hit..
- alljohnny.com. Hit!
- locateontheweb.com. cqcounter.com/whois/www/locateontheweb.com.html broken/test page
- rolling-in-rapids.com. web.archive.org/web/20111101080224/rolling-in-rapids.com no archives but cqcounter.com/whois/www/rolling-in-rapids.com.html hit style! viewdns.info/iphistory/?domain=rolling-in-rapids.com puts it at:
- 208.91.197.132 British Virgin Islands CONFLUENCE-NETWORK-INC 2014-01-31
- 65.218.91.9 United States UUNET 2013-12-20 so matchwith welcometonyc.com but not listed at viewdns.info/reverseip/?t=1&host=65.218.91.9 because of the viewdns.info reverse IP bug!
- differentviewtoday.com: tools.whoisxmlapi.com/whois-history-search kind of empty no name
but presumably these are the names of employees of the company? We are yet to see two identical names however, which also suggests fake names. Network Solutions appears to offer both hosting and domain registration, and the CIA seems to have used this service combo a lot.- golf-on-holiday.com: Pulley, Tammy. No tools.whoisxmlapi.com/whois-history-search reverse hits.
- intoworldnews.com: Benjamin McGrew. Only that hit for reverse name at tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search
- magneticfieldnews.com: Sarah Lowell tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search has 9 domains
- sarahlowell.com: web.archive.org/web/20110208130657/http://sarahlowell.com/ Yoga instructor.
- puppychallengesacademy.com
- sarahlowelldogtraining.com
- puppychallenges.com. web.archive.org/web/20130517151924/http://puppychallenges.com/ wordpress.
- puppychallenges.net
- realwomensduathlon.com. No archives of era: web.archive.org/web/20180808101430/http://realwomensduathlon.com/
- magneticfieldnews.com. Hit.
- highflyingagility.com. Legit? Service offer.
- ropies.com. web.archive.org/web/20111101080224/http://ropies.com/
- medicatechinfo.com: Jason Noll. Has the following hits at tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search
- dreamschemedesigns.com. Legit
- dreamschemedesigns.net
- aviationturbinesinternational.com. No relevant archives.
- garysluhan.com. Seems legit.
- cjlogic.com: registrar Godaddy (not Network Services!) and contact:This image is his Gmail's current profile image as of 2025: openclipart.org/detail/19437/high-wing-airplane
Noll, Jason noll.jason@gmail.com 104 Southridge Ct. Marthasville, Missouri 63357 United States (660) 441-0780 Fax -- - medicatechinfo.com. Hit.
- health-men-today.com. Hit. Holy fuck it has two hits out of 7!!!
- mydailynewsreport.com: Rebecca Melancon on tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search:
- rebecca-melancon.com. web.archive.org/web/20180808172531/http://rebecca-melancon.com/ pilates teacher
- swlabuyahome.net
- swlalistmyhome.net
- rebeccaworking4yousite.com
- mylakecharlescityguide.com
- swlalistmyhome.com
- rebeccaworking4you.com
- swlabuyahome.com
- calcasieuhouses.com web.archive.org/web/20111013212502/http://calcasieuhouses.com/. Wordpress. Copyright Rebecca Melancon, Equal Housing Opportunity.
Message from Rebecca
Welcome to Calcasieu Houses! Here you will find not only information about Real Estate in Calcasieu Parish & the Lake Charles area, but also information about the area itself. I am constantly adding content so please check back often. I can help you with relocation, buying, selling, as well as looking for a great restaurant or a new activity to do! There will be information on Lake Charles, Sulphur, Westlake, & Moss Bluff. If you have something you would like to see added to the website, please feel free to contact me!
- mydailynewsreport.com. Hit.
- plugged-into-news.net: Godfrey Hubbard. Searching tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search for two terms "Godfrey" "Hubbard" gives a small list of 20 domains including plugged-into-news.net. They all appear to have both words in them. Searching just "Hubbard, Godfrey" has only 3 hits:so it seems to match the strings exactly!
- hubbardgodfrey.online
- plugged-into-news.net
- hubbardgodfrey.com
- alljohnny.net: L. Glaze. tools.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-whois-search "Glaze, L." has
- godaddy without domainsbyproxy.com: a few of the websites are registered in Godaddy without domainsbyproxy. These might be the ones that gives out the most information:
- baocontact.com
How on Earth did did Citizen Labs find what seems to be a DNS fingerprint??? Are there simply some very rare badly registered domains? What did they see!
whoisxmlapi WHOIS history April 11, 2011:Folowed by reuters registration in 2022.
- Created Date: March 6, 2008 00:00:00 UTC
- Updated Date: March 7, 2011 00:00:00 UTC
- Expires Date: March 6, 2014 00:00:00 UTC
- Registrant Name: domainsbyproxy.com.
- Registrant Organization: Domains by Proxy, Inc.
- Registrant Street: 15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160,
- Registrant City: Scottsdale
- Registrant State/Province: Arizona
- Registrant Postal Code: 85260
- Registrant Country: UNITED STATES
- Name servers: NS29.WORLDNIC.COM|NS30.WORLDNIC.COM
whoisrequest.com/history/ mentions:
- 1 Apr, 2008: Domain created*, nameservers added. Nameservers:
- ns1.webhostingpad.com
- ns2.webhostingpad.com
In three dimensions In position representation, we define it by using the gradient, and so we see that
whoisxmlapi WHOIS history March 23, 2011:
whoisrequest.com/history/ mentions:
1 May, 2007: Domain created*, nameservers added. Nameservers:
1 May, 2007: Domain created*, nameservers added. Nameservers:
- ns1.qwknetllc.com
- ns2.qwknetllc.com
whoisxmlapi WHOIS history March 22, 2011:
- Registrar Name: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
- Created Date: January 26, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Updated Date: November 27, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Expires Date: January 26, 2012 00:00:00 UTC
- Registrant Name: Corral, Elizabeth|ATTN ACTIVEGAMINGINFO.COM|care of Network Solutions
- Registrant Street: PO Box 459
- Registrant City: PA
- Registrant State/Province: US
- Registrant Postal Code: 18222
- Registrant Country: UNITED STATES
- Administrative Name: Corral, Elizabeth|ATTN ACTIVEGAMINGINFO.COM|care of Network Solutions
- Administrative Street: PO Box 459
- Administrative City: Drums
- Administrative State/Province: PA
- Administrative Postal Code: 18222
- Administrative Country: UNITED STATES
- Administrative Email: xc2mv7ur8cw@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
- Administrative Phone: 5707088780
- Name servers: NS23.DOMAINCONTROL.COM|NS24.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
CIA 2010 covert communication websites feedsdemexicoyelmundo.com by
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
whoisxmlapi WHOIS record on April 28, 2011
whoisxmlapi WHOIS record on September 13, 2011
- Registrar Name: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC
- Created Date: February 17, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Updated Date: February 17, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
- Expires Date: February 17, 2015 00:00:00 UTC
- Registrant Name: See, Megan|ATTN NOTICIASMUSICA.NET|care of Network Solutions
- Registrant Street: PO Box 459
- Registrant City: PA
- Registrant State/Province: US
- Registrant Postal Code: 18222
- Registrant Country: UNITED STATES
- Administrative Contact
- Administrative Name: See, Megan|ATTN NOTICIASMUSICA.NET|care of Network Solutions
- Administrative Street: PO Box 459
- Administrative City: Drums
- Administrative State/Province: PA
- Administrative Postal Code: 18222
- Administrative Country: UNITED STATES
- Administrative Email: hf3eg77c4nn@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
- Administrative Phone: 5707088780
- Name Servers: NS45.WORLDNIC.COM|NS46.WORLDNIC.COM
2012:
- Registrant Country: PANAMA
whoisxmlapi WHOIS record on April 17, 2011
CIA 2010 covert communication websites iranfootballsource.com by
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Announcements and updates by self:
- 2023-06-10: initial announcements
- twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1667532991315230720. Follow up when more domains were found: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1717445686214504830
- www.reddit.com/r/OSINT/comments/146185r/i_found_16_new_cia_covert_communication_websites/. Marked as SPAM 5 by mods days later. After reaching 92 votes, a very positive reply for that niche sub, and being obviously on topic. Weird. Anyways, did its job and likely kicked off hackernews.
- www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/pfbid04KvRbEXghJakcD4AQz4379L5oVjPZ6vrBF1Eak3p81VnqRSXuXdvvYonCWPhGfQXl
- 2023-10-26 twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1717445686214504830: announcement by self after finding 75 more sites
- Shared by others soo after:
- www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/14705gp/cia_2010_covert_communication_websites/ failed attempt with bad link unfortunately
- 2024-01-15: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1747742453778559165 Oleg Shakirov's findings
- 2024-01-23: mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/111807480628392615 ipinf.ru gives 4 hits and 4 new suspects, announced at:
- 2024-09 Aratu Week 2024 Talk by Ciro Santilli: My Best Random Projects
- 2025-03-13: 44 new domains found: Section "44 new CIA websites"
- 2025-04-14: cqcounter screenshots used to confirm many new hits: Section "60 new CIA website screenshots discovered on CQ Counter"
- 2025-05-23: Section "Backing up CIA website archives for research and posterity"
Pings by self:
- 2025-03-13:
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1900278353065894324 pings x.com/JackRhysider Jack Rhysider, host of the Darkent Diaries podcast
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1900828210578727276 pings x.com/JennaMC_Laugh Jenna McLaughlin and x.com/zachsdorfman Zach Dorfman, authors of the 2018 Yahoo articles
- 2025-03-31 going to find random interested people on Twitter:
- 2025-05-05:
- inteltoday.org/2021/07/31/us-national-whistleblower-day-july-30-2021-i-john-reidy-declare-cia-debacle-in-iran-china/#comment-46375 pings the author Dr. Ludwig De Braeckeleer. Besides his interest in intelligence, the dude actually also won a Breakthrough Prize in Physics, holy fuck it's mind boggling.
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919391488422662245 pings x.com/marisaataylor Marisa Taylor, author of the 2014, McClathy DC article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919859345593880812 and x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919846838850499002 pings x.com/billmarczak Bill Marczak and x.com/thezedwards Zach Edwards, technical analysts for the Reuters article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919860643408007644 pings x.com/joel_schectman Joel Schectman and x.com/bozorgmehr Bozorgmehr Sharafedin authors of the Reuters article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919870831758365113 pings x.com/zachsdorfman Zach Dorfman (protected account) author of the Foreign Policy article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1920073080363241727 pings x.com/markmazzettinyt Mark Mazzetti, x.com/nytmike Michael S. Schmidt and x.com/mattapuzzo Matt Apuzzo authors of the 2017 New York Times article. Could not find a Twitter for the fourth author Adam Goldman.
- x.com/PeteWilliamsNBC Pete Williams author of the 2018 NCB News artricle: he's retired and not active on Twitter, not going to bother pinging
Reactions by others:
- 2023-06-19: www.reddit.com/r/numberstations/comments/14dexiu/after_numbers_stations_vanished/ (30 points) off topic on that sub, but thankfully was not deleted, interesting sub topic
- 2023-10-26: Google Analytics backlink from lms.fh-wedel.de/ path unknown. Some shitty German university: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachhochschule_Wedel_University_of_Applied_Sciences LMS stands for Learning management system, apparently a Moodle instance. Maybe they have some Open educational resources, but all in German so pointless
- Second wave:
- 2023-12-01: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38492304 (65 points). Second submission but pointing to OurBigBook.com rather than cirosantilli.com: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/cia-2010-covert-communication-websites We take those. Reached only 65 points as of January 2024.
- 2023-12-02: buttondown.email/grugq/archive/december-2-2023/. "grugq" is the handle of a zero day dealer whose received some scrutiny in 2012 after a Forbes protile was written about him: archive.ph/7mUG5. He comments:presumably referring to DNS Census 2013.
I don’t think anyone anticipated that databases leaked by hackers would enable OSINT researchers to conduct counterintelligence investigations that rival the state security services.
- 2024-01-12: twitter.com/jeremy_wokka/status/1745657801584656564 (40k followers, mid of thread)
- 2025-04-02: www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/1kd7rzo/comment/mqoocu7/?context=3 user Gilda1234_ mentions this project in a comment to "Between 2010 and 2012, China identified and killed at least 30 CIA informants in the country" by idlikebab
- 2025-05-26 The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site by Joseph Cox from 404 media, an upstart publication covering edgy digital subjects. This was likely a result of Ciro publicly pinging x.com/zachsdorfman Zach Edwards, one of the analysts for the Reuters article, at x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919846838850499002, as he is cited in the article as having done a technical review. This had a massive knowdown effect and several other media picked the story up. Ciro announcing it at:Forum threads spawned from it:Other media that picked it up:
- Reddit
- www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/1kvtzwm/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
- www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsEU/comments/1kvu5g8/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
- www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1kxtpw4/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
- www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1kxtpw4/comment/muu531n/A source: www.thesun.co.uk/sport/33904606/putin-spies-cristiano-ronaldo-youtube-videos-messages/
They aren’t the only ones who do stuff like this, Russian agents were using Ronaldo highlight vids on YouTube to communicate 😭
- www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1kxtpw4/comment/muu531n/
- www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1kye0pj/the_cia_operated_a_network_of_gaming_sites_and/
- www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1kvvx48/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_the/
- www.reddit.com/r/realtech/comments/1kvwigb/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_the/
- www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1kw991t/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
- www.reddit.com/r/LowStakesConspiracies/comments/1kwbf2y/the_cia_run_a_star_wars_fansite/
- www.reddit.com/r/andor/comments/1kw587c/very_andor_the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan/
- www.reddit.com/r/BrasildoB/comments/1kw6qah/um_brasileiro_acaba_de_publicar_detalhes_sobre_os/
- www.reddit.com/r/mexico/comments/1kwhuqg/la_incre%C3%ADble_web_de_star_wars_que_us%C3%B3_la_cia_para/
- www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1kwoch5/the_cia_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_to_secretly/
- www.reddit.com/r/starwarscanon/comments/1kwoxoq/til_the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
- www.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/1kwhxmj/cia_ran_star_wars_fan_site/
- www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1kxqim9/figures/
- www.reddit.com/r/Intelligence/comments/1kwybso/cia_uses_star_wars_website_to_communicate_with/
- www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsCirclejerk/comments/1kwzeto/in_my_mind_all_last_jedi_haters_are_feds/
- www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/1kw5x9n/the_cia_really_gets_creative_sometimes/
- www.reddit.com/r/BurnNotice/comments/1kw4b5k/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_for/
- www.reddit.com/r/BurnNotice/comments/1kw4b5k/comment/muemkhk/ brings up
europeangoldfinch.netfirst described in Season 2 of Prison Break in 2007.Europeangoldfinch.net was a website used by Michael Scofield that allowed the Fox River Eight to communicate with each other on its online message board
- www.reddit.com/r/BurnNotice/comments/1kw4b5k/comment/muemkhk/ brings up
- Decent tweets:
- x.com/CultureCrave/status/1927119278047727908 600k followers
- x.com/val_reloaded/status/1927349417306161165 Argentinian Twitcher 400k followers
- news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44098274 failed unfortunately
- knockout.chat/thread/72492/1
- fanlore.org/wiki/2009-2013_CIA_communications_websites
- YouTube
Video 1. . Source. 2025-05-27. 180k subs. This one focuses on talking about the games and uses this article as the mainreference. He makes that nice note that the game Star Wars Battlefront II reached all time highs in the days following the CIA releasejThe articles apparenty coincided with the reelase of Star Wars Battlefront III alpha to lukewarm reception. Video 2. Star Wars Fan Sites Are Run by THE FEDS?! by Clownfish TV. Source. 2025-05-27. 600k subs. Video didn't take off however. The channel seems to be semi dead. But it is cool to see an American with YouTube-worth eloquence going over it.Video 3. . Source. 2025-05-28. 2M subs. He's basically reading the techspot article: www.techspot.com/news/108062-cia-used-star-wars-fan-site-secretly-communicate.html. Video 5. . Source. Seytonic had previously covered Reuters article at this other video:Video 8. . Source. 2025-06-13. 12k subs. This video draws on some research from this article, citing it on the source list: docs.google.com/document/d/1k7-YoOMRTL8qKE_FoRnyvR1QDa0JTBJo_a-SRwVMEu4/edit?tab=t.0 and using some of the screenshots.This video has some good mentions of the details of Jerry Chun Shing Lee's story which Ciro Santilli was not aware of. - other voice media:
- Meneame, a Spanish Reddit: 2025-05-27 www.meneame.net/m/tecnolog%C3%ADa/increible-web-star-wars-uso-cia-espiar-espana-mexico-otros/standard
Starting on that same day someone made starwarsweb.net redirect to cia.gov at 2025-05-26T13:28:02Z: www.whois.com/whois/starwarsweb.net- "mainstream":
- www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14752155/CIA-fake-websites-Star-Wars-communicate-spies.html Also announcing that:
* mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/114580297330915997
* x.com/cirosantilli/status/1927373757829583344
* www.linkedin.com/posts/cirosantilli_the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site-activity-7333140418504646656-eRzq/
* www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/pfbid026kssQcXm7TwAHDJ4BQ73RKFCmJRLJsT1dfRpEmZ5GZdmsp8DukaqrbefFuGDqNZvl - www.themirror.com/news/us-news/cia-uses-star-wars-website-1174874
- www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14752155/CIA-fake-websites-Star-Wars-communicate-spies.html Also announcing that:
- "mainstream" non-English:
- www.france24.com/fr/%C3%A9co-tech/20250528-star-wars-bourse-ou-football-les-etranges-sites-pour-les-informateurs-de-la-cia (French)
- francais.rt.com/international/121266-espionnage-cia-utilisait-sites-fans-star-wars-pour-communiquer-secretement-avec-ses-agents-etrangers RT in French, God
- www.derstandard.at/consent/tcf/story/3000000271640/die-cia-hat-heimlich-eine-star-wars-fanseite-betrieben Der Standard (Austria)
- tw.news.yahoo.com/玩家可能都用過?原來「美國中情局」cia曾營運過遊戲媒體網站掩護行動-070742215.html (Yahoo Taiwan)
- www.abc.es/internacional/cia-empleo-sitios-web-inofensivos-paginas-star-20250528171402-nt.html (Spain)
- "non-mainstream":
- www.dexerto.com/entertainment/the-cia-secretly-used-a-star-wars-fan-site-to-talk-to-spies-report-3199318/ and x.com/Dexerto/status/1927000891963363406 large-ish publication
- www.thegamer.com/star-wars-fan-website-cia-usa-government-spies-controlled/
- www.techspot.com/news/108062-cia-used-star-wars-fan-site-secretly-communicate.html This was one of the biggest hits on Google Analytics actually.
- gigazine.net/news/20250527-starwars-fan-sites-made-by-cia/ Japanese
- Wired:
- www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-cia-operated-a-network-of-gaming-sites-and-even-a-star-wars-fanpage-that-were-part-of-one-of-its-worst-ever-intelligence-catastrophes/
- www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site-to-communicate-with-spies/ar-AA1FASFY
- www.gamespot.com/articles/the-cia-once-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site-as-part-of-a-global-intelligence-effort/1100-6532045/
- www.darkhorizons.com/how-u-s-spies-used-a-star-wars-fan-page/
- gigazine.net/news/20250527-starwars-fan-sites-made-by-cia/
- Reddit
- 2025-08-01 saw another mini-trend due to The CIA Built Hundreds of Covert Websitesby Alan Macleod: www.mintpressnews.com/cia-secret-network-885-fake-websites/290325/
This then spawned some sindicated posts:and forum threads:- www.sott.net/article/500997-The-CIA-built-hundreds-of-covert-websites-Heres-what-they-were-hiding
- scheerpost.com/2025/08/02/the-cia-built-hundreds-of-covert-websites-heres-what-they-were-hiding/
- 2025-08-02 alethonews.com/2025/08/02/the-cia-built-hundreds-of-covert-websites-heres-what-they-were-hiding/ (Greek)
- 2025-08-02 popularresistance.org/the-cia-built-hundreds-of-covert-websites/
- 2025-08-04 cz24.news/alan-macleod-cia-vytvorila-stovky-tajnych-webu-globalni-spionazni-terminaly-co-vlastne-skryvaly/ (Czech)
Notable reactions to the websites themselves:
- 2022-09-29 www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/xrgua4/the_cia_used_a_message_board_on_a_fake_soccer/ "The CIA used a message board on a fake soccer website called "Iraniangoals.com" to communicate with Iranian spies, dozens of whom were arrested after the website was discovered." by user Carlos-Dangerzone
Edward Snowden in 2013
. Source. From the film Prism, during interview with reporter Glenn Greenwald. Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. - Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact







