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whoisxmlapi WHOIS record on April 28, 2011

Registrar Name: GODADDY.COM, INC
Created Date: February 9, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
Updated Date: February 9, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
Expires Date: February 9, 2015 00:00:00 UTC
Registrant Name: domainsbyproxy.com
Name servers: NS55.DOMAINCONTROL.COM|NS56.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

CIA 2010 covert communication websites / noticiasmusica.net by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

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

CIA 2010 covert communication websites / atomworldnews.com by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

whoisxmlapi WHOIS record on April 17, 2011

Created Date: April 9, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
Updated Date: April 9, 2010 00:00:00 UTC
Expires Date: April 9, 2012 00:00:00 UTC
Registrant Name: domainsbyproxy.com
Name servers: NS33.DOMAINCONTROL.COM|NS34.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

CIA 2010 covert communication websites / iranfootballsource.com by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Backlinks by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-08-08

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:
- news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36279375#36280220 (212 points). Shame that this was published when we only had about 20 websites. As of writing we had 240. Might have been a greater hit then.
  Figure 1. Source.
- 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:
  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.
  presumably referring to DNS Census 2013.
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:
- 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/
    They aren’t the only ones who do stuff like this, Russian agents were using Ronaldo highlight vids on YouTube to communicate 😭
    A source: www.thesun.co.uk/sport/33904606/putin-spies-cristiano-ronaldo-youtube-videos-messages/
  - www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1kye0pj/the_cia_operated_a_network_of_gaming_sites_and/
    www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1kye0pj/comment/mv0rxcv/
    In one case in Iran, somebody from the US embassy would take a big stack of envelopes, to to the same post office every time, and mail them all in one big batch... That didn't end well.
    In another case in Iraq, somebody got ahold of a ton of old soviet satellite phones and they were distributed among this particular group of people in Iraq. The same model sat phone. That didn't end well.
  - 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.net
    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
    first described in Season 2 of Prison Break in 2007.
- 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.
  The Cia Runs A Star Wars Fanpage by PeepIsAwesome
  . 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 releasej
  www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefront-2s-huge-steam-resurgence-isnt-a-mystery-when-you-realize-its-just-really-good/
  The 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.
  CIA Used Star Wars Fan Sites to SECRETLY Communicate with SPIES by Tyrone Magnus
  . 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 4.
  Le fiasco des sites secrets de la CIA by Sylvqin
  . Source. 2025-08-28. 520k subs. French.
  Video 5.
  2025-05-31. 500k subs. The CIA's Secret Star Wars Blog Got People Killed by Seytonic
  . Source.
  Seytonic had previously covered Reuters article at this other video:
  Video 6.
  Undercover CIA Websites Got Informants Killed by Seytonic
  . Source. 2022-10-03.
  Video 7.
  CIA Star Wars Site by UFD Tech
  . Source. 2025-06-10. 1.35M subs.
  Video 8.
  How 20 CIA Spies Mysteriously Disappeared in China by shnoop
  . 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.
  Video 9.
  The CIA's Secret Star Wars Fan Blog by Half as Interesting
  . Source. 2025-06-26. 3M subs.
- other voice media:
  - www.smashingsecurity.com/419-star-wars-the-cia-and-a-whatsapp-malware-mirage/
- 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
Other media that picked it up:
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
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:
- 2025-08-04 www.meneame.net/story/cia-creo-cientos-sitios-web-encubiertos-esto-ocultaban-eng/c01#c-1

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

National Security Agency by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

National Security Agency employee by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Edward Snowden by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Edward Snowden original interview cut by The Guardian (2013)

Source.

Lindsay Mills by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Snowden Opens Up About His Girlfriend

. Source. TODO interviewed by.

Video 2.

"Citizenfour" winning Best Documentary Feature by Oscars (2014)

Source. Lindsay attended.

Snowden (film) by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-26

Aptitude test scene from the Snowden 2016 film

. Source.

Video 2.

FISA Court Order The Guardian discussion scene from the Snowden 2016 film

. Source.

Video 3.

How is this Possible? scene from the Snowden 2016 film

. Source.

Video 4.

Fresh Brains for You scene from the Snowden 2016 film

. Source.

Asymmetric warfare by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Terrorism by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Terrorist attack by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents

Boston Marathon bombing by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

List of wars by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

World War I by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

World War II by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Russian invasion of Ukraine by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Popular science by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

On one hand, yes, we need knowledge at all levels, and it is fine to start top-to-bottom with an overview.

The problem is, however, that there is a huge knowledge gap between the one liner "this is the truth" and the much more important "this is how we know it, these are the experiments" as mentioned at how to teach and learn physics.

Therefore, if you have that extremely rare knowledge, you should be writing that in addition to the dumbed down version with an open knowledge license. It takes time, but that's what really changes the world.

Ciro Santilli has always felt that there is a huge gap between "the very basic" and "the very advanced", as mentioned at: Section "The missing link between basic and advanced", which existing scientific vulgarization is not doing enough to address. In a sense, filling out this "middle path" is the main goal of OurBigBook.com.

Ciro really enjoyed the description of the "Arindam Kumar Chatterjee" YouTube channel:

Theoretical/mathematical physics at the graduate level and above. This is NOT a popular science channel. Here you find real theoretical physicists doing real theoretical physics. We think it is important for people to get a taste of the real deal, and for aspiring theoretical physicists to see what they are working towards, i.e., to provide the public with something beyond the ubiquitous Michio Kaku and Brian Cox.

One thing must be said however: there seems to be an actual bias against researchers tho try to create vulgarization material: How To Get Tenure at a Major Research University by Sean Carroll (2011), and that is terrible.

There is often more value in a tutorial by a beginner who is trying to fully learn and explain a subject, than by an expert who is trying to "dumb it down" too much.

Pop Science And The Limitations Of Infotainment by Coffee Break (2019)

Source.

Crank (person) by

Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16

Yet, all breakthroughs, comes from them, because the people who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones who actually do ;-)

How to deal articles:

web.mst.edu/~lmhall/WhatToDoWhenTrisectorComes.pdf What To Do When The Trisector Comes by Underwood Dudley (1983)
academia.stackexchange.com/questions/111413/what-is-the-best-way-to-deal-with-cranks/111414
www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/beware-cranks

 Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

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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!