Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli) - New articles

twitter.com/saylor 2.6 M followers as of 2022. Because of Bitcoin? Or was he famous before that?
www.michael.com/ yes, he is Michael.com lol. When did he get the domain, and at what price? He's mildlly obsessed with domain names it seems: www.domainsherpa.com/saylor/. He also bought frank.com, mike.com. emma.com. This was between 1994 and 2000. He mentions that his email is saylor@strategy.com. strategy.com redirects to microstrategy.com as of 2022, so seems still valid.
We actually got a backlink from tvt.phishlabs.com to this page in August 2022, a phising security provider, presumably for showing his email here. This reminds Ciro of the All GitHub Commit Emails event!
A quick google for that address also leads to www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/00/business/saylor0621.htm, a year 2000 profile page by the Washington Post, followed by a Q&A. In the Q&A, Michael himself gives his email in relation to Saylor Academy:
Kensington, Maryland: What has happened to your vision of an internet university? I believe it is an important initiative and it doesn't require $100 million to get started. We at the Rockefeller Foundation would like to become involved. How can we do this?
Michael Saylor: The internet university is alive and well. My goal is to initially roll out a cyber-libary of digital video that can be used by any for-profit or non-profit organization in order to accelerate the free education initiative. Eventually, people may just go direct to the web site.
I think the entire thing will unfold over about 10 years.
Send me an email if you would like to get involved. (saylor@strategy.com)
so it was already beyond leaked. Ciro did hit that email address seeking funding for OurBigBook.com, but no reply unfortunately. Maybe you gotta be part of the Rockefeller family to get a reply from these people? Well, at least this led to Ciro learning about the Rockefeller Foundation.

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Optical component Updated 2025-07-16

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SARS-CoV-2 protein Updated 2025-07-16

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Year 3 of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford Updated 2025-07-16

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Bisection (software engineering) Updated 2025-07-16

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One of the Holiest age old debugging techniques!

Git has some helpers to help you achieve bisection Nirvana: stackoverflow.com/questions/4713088/how-to-use-git-bisect/22592593#22592593

Obviously not restricted to software engineering alone, and used in all areas of engineering, e.g. Video "Air-tight vs. Vacuum-tight by AlphaPhoenix (2020)" uses it in vacuum engineering.

The cool thing about bisection is that it is a brainless process: unlike when using a debugger, you don't have to understand anything about the system, and it incredibly narrows down the problem cause for you. Not having to think is great!

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Bisulfite sequencing Updated 2025-07-16

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The main way to sequence DNA methylation. Converts methylated cytosine to uracil, and then we can sequence those.

Video 1.

Bisulfite Sequencing by Henrik's Lab (2020)

Source. Nothing much new that we don't understand from a single sentence in the animation. But hey, animations!

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Bitcoin blockchain parser Updated 2025-07-16

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This section is about partial implementations that are only able to read the blocks, ususally coming from Bitcoin Core, to interpret the data:

bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/22500/is-there-a-lightweight-blockchain-parser-library-server

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Bitcoin Core snap Updated 2025-07-16

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Officially supported installation method on Ubuntu 23.10.

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CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Backlinks Updated 2025-08-08

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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

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XY sex-determination system Updated 2025-07-16

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Android (operating system) Updated 2025-07-16

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the best full featured free OS we have today, since POSIX gave up short of any UI specification, and Chrome OS is not there yet
usable and likely efficient Java API for apps if Oracle doesn't manage to destroy it with its lawsuit

However, many, many, many terrible horrors come with it:

it hasn't made the move to desktop for too many years. It could destroy Microsoft Windows and replace it with open source, but they just won't budge towards an unified mobile/desktop setup.
vendors litter it with uninstallable bloatware that should be illegal. European Union to the rescue!!! www.cnbc.com/2020/12/15/digital-markets-act-eus-new-rules-on-big-tech.html
vendors lock down devices so it is very hard to get sudo, let alone to modify their images!
there isn't enough hardware standardization for open source distros to thrive like on desktop
code drops mean that "master" is useless and trying to contribute from outside vendors' closed walls is a waste of time: stackoverflow.com/questions/1809774/how-to-compile-the-android-aosp-kernel-and-test-it-with-the-android-emulator/48310014#48310014
if you ever go below the Java API, e.g. to C++ or AOSP build, everything is horrendous and undocumented
Google doesn't care about the CLI, even the hello world requires creating infinite out-of-control boilerplate from a GUI: stackoverflow.com/questions/20801042/how-to-create-android-project-with-gradle-from-command-line/46994747#46994747
the boot is uber bloated and takes forever in cycle simulators

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Biology Updated 2025-07-16

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Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37