Git tips / Oh, but there are 2 trees: local and remote Updated +Created
Oh but there are usually 2 trees: local and remote.
So you also have to learn how to observe and modify and sync with the remote tree!
But basically:
git fetch
to update the remote tree. And then you can use it exactly like any other branch, except you prefix them with the remote (usually origin/*), e.g.:
  • origin/master is the latest fetch of the remote version of master
  • origin/my-feature is the latest fetch of the remote version of my-feature
Globalization reduces the power of governments Updated +Created
While Ciro Santilli is a big fan of having "one global country" (and language), which is somewhat approximated by globalization, he has come to believe that there is one serious downside to globalization as it stands in 2020: it allows companies to pressure governments to reduce taxes, and thus reduces the power of government, which in turn increases social inequality. This idea is very well highlighted in Can't get you out of my head by Adam Curtis (2021).
The only solution seems to be for governments to get together, and make deals to have fair taxation across each other. Which might never happen.
GNOME Project Updated +Created
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Data sources Updated +Created
This is a dark art, and many of the sources are shady as fuck! We often have no idea of their methodology. Also no source is fully complete. We just piece up as best we can.
In order to explore IPs in known IP ranges, what we need are good DNS databases.
GNU General Public License Updated +Created
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / DNS Census 2013 Updated +Created
This data source was very valuable, and led to many hits, and to finding the first non Reuters ranges with Section "secure subdomain search on 2013 DNS Census".
Hit overlap:
jq -r '.[].host' ../media/cia-2010-covert-communication-websites/hits.json ) | xargs -I{} sqlite3 aiddcu.sqlite "select * from t where d = '{}'"
Domain hit count when we were at 279 hits: 142 hits, so about half of the hits were present.
The timing of the database is perfect for this project, it is as if the CIA had planted it themselves!
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / dnshistory.org Updated +Created
dnshistory.org contains historical domain -> mappings.
We have not managed to extract much from this source, they don't have as much data on the range of interest.
But they do have some unique data at least, perhaps we should try them a bit more often, e.g. they were the only source we've seen so far that made the association: headlines2day.com -> 212.209.74.126 which places it in the more plausible globalbaseballnews.com IP range.
TODO can it do IP to domain? Or just domain to IP? Asked on their Discord: discord.com/channels/698151879166918727/968586102493552731/1124254204257632377. Their banner suggests that yes:
With our new look website you can now find other domains hosted on the same IP address, your website neighbours and more even quicker than before.
Owner replied, you can't:
At the moment you can only do this for current not historical records
This is a shame, reverse IP here could be quite valuable.
In principle, we could obtain this data from search engines, but Google doesn't track that entire website well, e.g. no hits for site:dnshistory.org "62.22.60.48" presumably due to heavy IP throttling.
Homepage dnshistory.org/ gives date starting in 2009:
Here at DNS History we have been crawling DNS records since 2009, our database currently contains over 1 billion domains and over 12 billion DNS records.
and it is true that they do have some hits from that useful era.
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / feedsdemexicoyelmundo.com Updated +Created
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
The JavaScript of each website appears to be quite small and similarly sized. They are all minimized, but have reordered things around a bit.
First we have to know that the Wayback Machine adds some stuff before and after the original code. The actual code there starts at:
ap={fg:['MSXML2.XMLHTTP
and ends in:
ck++;};return fu;};
We can use a JavaScript beautifier such as beautifier.io/ to be abe to better read the code.
It is worth noting that there's a lot of <script> tags inline as well, which seem to matter.
Further analysis would be needed.
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Find missing hits in IP ranges Updated +Created
All IP ranges have some holes in them for which we don't have a domain name.
It is because there was nothing there, or just because we don't have a good enough reverse IP database?
It is possible that DomainTools could help with a more complete database, but its access is extremely expensive and out of reach at the moment.
Censys is another option that would be good to try.
Putting 140 USD into WhoisXMLAPI to get all whois histories of interest for possible reverse searches would also be of interest.
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Google searches for known domains and IPs Updated +Created
Googling most domains gives only very few results, and most of them are just useless lists of expired domains. Skipping those for now.
Googling "dedrickonline.com" has a git at www.webwiki.de/dedrickonline.com# Furthermore, it also contains the IP address "65.61.127.174" under the "Technik" tab!
Unfortunately that website appears to be split by language? E.g. the English version does not contain it: www.webwiki.com/dedrickonline.com, which would make searching a bit harder, but still doable.
But if we can Google search those IPs there, we might just hit gold.
IP search did work! www.webwiki.de/65.61.127.174
But doesn't often/ever work unfortunately for others.
Searching on github.com: github.com/DrWhax/cia-website-comms by Jurre van Bergen from September 2022 contains some of the links to some of the ones reported by Reuters including some of their JARs, presumably for reversing purposees. Pinged him at: github.com/DrWhax/cia-website-comms/issues/1
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Hits with nearby IP hits Updated +Created
62.22.60.49: telecom-headlines.com. UUNET in Spain. Found with: visual inspection of full 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup list just before worldnewsnetworking.com. Tested viewdns.info range: 62.22.60.34 - 62.22.60.66
  • 62.22.60.33: newsperk.com. Almost certainly a hit. Stylistically perfect, rss-item. But no comms not found. Ennerving! 2011. English. Egypt. news. Later legitimately reused.
  • 62.22.60.34: freeslideshow.net. Legit? Attempting to open any HTML archives leads to an infinite page load loop, e.g. 2010. A subpage however exists: web.archive.org/web/20101230001640/http://freeslideshow.net/index_files/a.htm and appears legit.
  • 62.22.60.40: travel-passage.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.42: newsupdatesite.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.46: flyingtimeline.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.47: globalemergenceadvisorsbkserver.com. Legit.
  • 62.22.60.48: currentcommunique.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.49: telecom-headlines.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.52: collectedmedias.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.54: romulusactualites.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.55: thefilmcentre.com. Hit.
  • 62.22.60.56: traveltimenews.com. Hit.
62.22.61.206 worldnewsnetworking.com. UUNET in Spain. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 62.22.61.188 - 62.22.61.224
65.218.91.17 alljohnny.com. UUNET in United States. One of the Reuters websites.
63.131.229.12 cyberreportagenews.com. ADHOST in Coeur d'Alene - United States. Tested viewdns.info range: 63.131.228.248 - 63.131.229.30
  • 63.131.229.2: fightskillsresource.com. Hit
  • 63.131.229.4: unitedterritorynews.com. Hit
  • 63.131.229.9: show-dustry.com. Hit
  • 63.131.229.10: afghanpoetry.net. Hit. Also at 74.254.12.166 in another range.
  • 63.131.229.11: mythriftytrip.com. Hit
  • 63.131.229.12: cyberreportagenews.com. Hit.
  • 63.131.229.13: sunrise-news.com. Hit.
  • 63.131.229.15: cricketnewsforindia.com. Hit.
  • 63.131.229.16:
  • 63.131.229.18: itnl-xchange.com. Hit.
  • 63.131.229.20:
    • fixashion.net. Hit.
    • a few others
63.130.160.50 theglobalheadlines.com. CW Vodafone Group PLC in United States. Found with: 2013 DNS census secureserver.net MX records intersection 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup. Tested viewdns.info range: 63.130.160.35 - 63.130.160.75
64.16.204.55 holein1news.com. Saudi Telecom Company JSC in Saudi Arabia. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 64.16.204.50 - 64.16.204.63. With did Wayback Machine have so few archives here? TODO stopping viewdns.info exploration a bit short due to that.
65.61.127.163 capture-nature.com. ADHOST in Greenacres - United States. whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-65-61-96-0-1/pft?s=65.61.127.163: Net Range: 65.61.96.0 - 65.61.127.255. Organization. Name: TierPoint, LLC. Tested viewdns.info range: 65.61.127.149 -
  • 65.61.127.46: anahuacchamber.com 2012-12-22T14:59:01
  • 65.61.127.117: medicaresupplementalinsurance.com, 2013-08-21T09:49:41. Legit.
  • 65.61.127.121: counter-images.com 2013-08-22T11:14:44: web.archive.org/web/20110208173132/http://www.counter-images.com/ Empty.
  • 65.61.127.125 zaphound.com 2013-08-21T02:25:40. Legit.
  • 65.61.127.130: ambitions.org 2013-08-22T01:43:40. Legit.
  • 65.61.127.161: european-footballer.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.163: capture-nature.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.164: futbolistico.net. 2012-02-20T03:25:33. Legit. web.archive.org/web/20130509004058/http://futbolistico.net/
  • 65.61.127.165: travelconnectionsonline.com. Ciro initially though this might be a hit. But upon Googling it, there's now a mirror at: travelconn.tripod.com/. Combined with the lack of a standard communications mechanism and the 2001 copyright, maybe it isn't a hit after all
  • 65.61.127.166: globalnewsbulletin.com: Hit.
  • 65.61.127.167: internationalwhiskylounge.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.168: the-golden-rule.info 2013-09-20T02:13:52. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.169: crossovernews.net. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.170: newsidori.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.171: nrgconsultingandnews.com. Hit. 2013-08-13T18:45:05
  • 65.61.127.172: premierstriker.com. Hit. 2012-01-11
  • 65.61.127.174: dedrickonline.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.175: altworldnews.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.176: american-historyonline.com. Hit. 2011-09-08
  • 65.61.127.177: material-science.org. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.178: tee-shot.net. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.180: screencentral.info. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.181: worldnewsandtravel.com. Hit. 2011-11-13
  • 65.61.127.182: pangawana.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.183: cutabovenews.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.184: worldwildlifeadventure.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.186: explorealtmeds.com. Hit.
  • 65.61.127.194: 16 domains, so unclear.
  • 65.61.127.200: cdl-link.com (ipinf.ru). Legit.
  • 65.61.127.222: asianwhitecoffee.com 2012-07-16T09:21:05 web.archive.org/web/20110903080036/http://asianwhitecoffee.com/. Could be legit.
66.45.179.205 noticiasporjanua.com. ADHOST in Edmonds - United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup. Tested viewdns.info range: 66.45.179.187 - 66.45.179.223
  • 66.45.179.187: mail03.gatesfoundation.org. Legit.
  • 66.45.179.192: thegraceofislam.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.193: arabicnewsunfiltered.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.194: raulsonsglobalnews.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.195: aryannews.net. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.199: attivitaestremi.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.200: foodwineandsuch.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.201: hitthepavementnow.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.203: noticiascontinental.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.205: noticiasporjanua.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.206: podisticamondiale.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.207: reflectordenoticias.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.208: havenofgamerz.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.209: vejaaeuropa.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.210: sa-michigan.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.211: absolutebearing.net. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.212: grandretirement.net. No archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/grandretirement.net.html blank image.
  • 66.45.179.213: myportaltonews.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.214: investmentintellect.com. Hit.
  • 66.45.179.215: nigeriastar.net 2012-03-12. Hit.
66.104.169.184 bcenews.com. XO-AS15 in United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 66.104.169.158 - 66.104.169.189
66.104.173.186 myworldlymusic.com. XO-AS15 in United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 66.104.173.158 - 66.104.173.194
66.104.175.40 beyondnetworknews.com. XO-AS15 in United States. whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-66-104-0-0-1/pft?s=66.104.175.40. Net Range:66.104.0.0 - 66.107.255.255. 2012 Internet Census puts most/all hits in this range under ip66-104-175-34.z175-104-66.customer.algx.net, algx.net redirects to verizon.com as of 2023. Related: superuser.com/questions/956568/why-are-my-pings-going-to-customer-algx-net. Tested viewdns.info range: 66.104.175.24 - unknown
66.175.106.148 activegaminginfo.com. UUNET in United States. whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-66-175-106-128-1/pft?s=66.175.106.148: Net Range: 66.175.106.128 - 66.175.106.159. Customer Name: DIAMOND-COLESON. Tested viewdns.info range: 66.175.106.131 - 66.175.106.178
66.237.236.247 comunidaddenoticias.com. XO-AS15 in United States. Tested viewdns.info range: 66.237.236.222 - 66.237.236.254
69.84.156.90 stickshiftnews.com. COLOSPACE in Methuen - United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 69.84.156.64 - 69.84.156.95
  • 69.84.156.69: al-ashak-news-me.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.70: theventurenews.info. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.71: worldfinancetoday.net. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.72: autonewsarabia.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.74: blue-moon-news.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.75: theoutergreen.com. No archives. Might have been another golf hit. cqcounter.com/whois/www/theoutergreen.com.html not found.
  • 69.84.156.76: tnc-urdu.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.79: jassimnews.com. No archives/broken. cqcounter.com/whois/www/jassimnews.com.html blank.
  • 69.84.156.80: noticiasdenuestromundo.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.82: arabicnewsonline.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.83: unganadormundial.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.84: focusonbokeh.com. Hit. Network Solutions, LLC.
  • 69.84.156.85: classic-rocktopia.com. Hit. domainsbyproxy.com.
  • 69.84.156.87: i7diver.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.88: diariodeelmundo.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.89: todaysarabnews.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.90: stickshiftnews.com. Hit.
  • 69.84.156.91: theinternationalgoal.com. Hit.
72.34.53.174 technologytodayandtomorrow.com. IHNET in United States. This IP is special. This IP is somehow closely linked to the "Mass Deface III" pastebin as it seems to have been hosted by Condor hosting. They also have many old sites, and links to Russia which is apparently where this was hosted.
74.116.72.236 techtopnews.com. OPTIMUM-WIFI2 in Brooklyn - United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 74.116.72.215 - 74.116.72.254
74.254.12.168 non-stop-news.net. BELLSOUTH-NET-BLK in Atlantic Beach - United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 74.254.12.158 - 74.254.12.195. This domain exceptionally also has a second IP also with multihits: 207.239.196.230. The fact that the range has rdns sources with hits from both 2013 DNS Census and viewdns.info suggests this range is correct.
173.208.81.2 LEASEWEB-USA-CHI in Lombard - United States:
199.85.212.118 just-kidding-news.com. ATT-INTERNET4 in United States.
204.176.38.143 noticiassofisticadas.com. UUNET in United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup. Tested viewdns.info range: 204.176.38.125 - 204.176.38.154
  • 204.176.38.130: i-pressnews.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.132: turkishnewslinks.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.134: photographyarecord.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.135: breakingthewicket.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.136: politicalworldtoday.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.137: hi-tech-today.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.138: continental-business-news.com. TODO. rss-item, split images. 2011. Cannot find comms. Also header and footer are not limited width which is unusual. Further HTML similarity reversing would be needed.
  • 204.176.38.139: bigscreenbattles.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.141: rakotafootball.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.142: senderosdemontana.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.143: noticiassofisticadas.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.144: techno-today.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.145: tickettonews.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.146: dps-digitalphotosharing.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.147: theputtingreen.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.149: sportsnewstodayar.com. Hit.
  • 204.176.38.150: kairuafricanews.com. Hit.
204.176.39.115 globalprovincesnews.com. UUNET in United States. Tested viewdns.info range: 204.176.39.93 - 204.176.39.124
207.150.191.68 technologypresstoday.com. Saudi Telecom Company JSC in Saudi Arabia.
207.210.250.132 aeronet-news.com. AS17378 in United States. This is the Autonomous System Number for TierPoint, LLC. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 207.210.250.126 - 207.210.250.157
  • 207.210.250.131: starrynightnews.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.132: aeronet-news.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.133: bakaribulletin.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.134: deprensaenlarevisiondehoy.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.135: icwb-news.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.136: sportsreelhighlights.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.137: fashionforward.info. No archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/fashionforward.info.html innovative but has a "Member" section. Stock lady visible somwhere at westlahairgrowth.com/?page_id=12158 according to Google images but I couldn't find it easily in the page.
  • 207.210.250.138: inquiry-human-past.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.139: thefairwaysaregreen.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.142: russiaupdate.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.143: archaeologyreview.net. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.144: highspeed-news.com. No archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/highspeed-news.com.html not found.
  • 207.210.250.146: noticias-caracas.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.147: bailandstump.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.148: classicalmusic4arab.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.149: globalventurestat.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.152: al-rashidrealestate.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.153: newsintheworld-ru.com. Hit.
  • 207.210.250.154: news-unlimited.info. Hit.
208.93.112.105 fastnews-online.com. TULIP-SYSTEMS in United States. Checked viewdns.info range: 208.93.112.90 - 208.93.112.155
208.254.38.39 todaysengineering.com. COLO-PREM-VZB in United States.
  • Tested viewdns.info range: 208.254.38.9 - 208.254.38.86. Weirdly empty, doesn't even show the domain iteslf!
  • 68.178.232.100: source: securitytrails.com. 2009-11-24 - 2009-12-11, GoDaddy.com, LLC
208.254.40.117 worldnewsandent.com. COLO-PREM-VZB in United States. whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-208-192-0-0-1/pft?s=208.254.40.117: Net Range 208.192.0.0 - 208.255.255.255. Tested viewdns.info range: 208.254.40.92 - 208.254.40.135
  • 208.254.40.96: sixty2media.com. Hit.
  • 208.254.40.99: newspoliticssource.com. Hit.
  • 208.254.40.110 musical-fortune.net. Hit.
  • 208.254.40.113: ashoka-gemstones.com. Hit.
  • 208.254.40.117: worldnewsandent.com. Hit.
  • 208.254.40.124: riskandrewardnews.com. Hit.
  • 208.254.40.129: mailb.casella.com. Legit.
208.254.42.205 driversinternationalgolf.com. COLO-PREM-VZB in United States. Tested viewdns.info range: 208.254.42.178 - 208.254.42.233.
209.162.192.49 rastadirect.net. DF-PTL2-3 in Gresham - United States. Source: securitytrails.com and cqcounter.com/site/rastadirect.net.html. Tested viewdns.info: 209.162.192.30 209.162.192.70
* 209.162.192.44: thejewelofsouthamerica.com. Hit.
* 209.162.192.49: rastadirect.net. Hit.
* 209.162.192.51: yellow-chair-report.com. Hit.
* 209.162.192.54: tutkulu-turu.com. Possible hit. domainsbyproxy.com 2008-03-04. Weird style made up exclusively of cut up images, including the text itself where links would normally be. Turkish. Archive a bit weird with images on top of text. 2011 Copyright 2006. Unarchived link to web.archive.org/web/20110129065840/http://tutkulu-turu.com/login.html with title "Kullanıcı adı" (Username). Headline "Online seyahat etmek acenta" translates to "Online travel agency".
* 209.162.192.57: globalnewsreports.net. Hit.
* 209.162.192.59: easytravelsite.net. Hit.
* 209.162.192.70: phrio.com. Off date. viewdns.info/reverseip/?t=1&host=209.162.192.70
210.80.75.55 philippinenewsonline.net. UUNET in Australia. Tested viewdns.info range: 210.80.75.30 - 210.80.75.67
  • 210.80.75.35: aroundtheworldnews.net. No archives. ipinf.ru/domains/210.80.75.33/ disagrees and places it at .33.
  • 210.80.75.36: e-commodities.net. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.37: trekkingtoday.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.41: multinews-33.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.42: movimientodenticias.com. No archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/movimientodenticias.com.html blank.
  • 210.80.75.43: gulfandmiddleeastnews.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.44: whirlybirdinflight.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.45: kings-game.net. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.46: topglobalnewsdaily.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.49: recipe-dujour.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.53: sportsman-elite.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.55: philippinenewsonline.net. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.56: technewsforme.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.59: goldeportesnoticias.com. Hit.
  • 210.80.75.68: gigabyte-usa.com. Legit.
212.4.16.232 mynewscheck.com. UUNET in Cassano d'Adda - Italy. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 212.4.16.214 - 212.4.17.198. ipinf.ru/domains/?search=212.4.17.125&cust=1 says they are /19, so .16 and .17 are both the same range from a registration perspective::
212.4.17.38 fightwithoutrules.com. UUNET in Cassano d'Adda - Italy. whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-208-192-0-0-1/pft?s=208.254.40.117. Net Range: 208.192.0.0 - 208.255.255.255. Organization: Name: Verizon Business. Tested viewdns.info range: see 212.4.16.* above
  • 212.4.17.38: fightwithoutrules.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.41: newtechfrontier.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.43: smart-travel-consultant.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.46: atentlaloc.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.53: newsresolution.net. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.56: lesummumdelafinance.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.56: thepinnacleoffinance.com. No Wayback machine archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/thepinnacleoffinance.com.html blank.
  • 212.4.17.61: tech-stop.org. Archive: 2011. Feels likely. No commons found. .org hit? Has subdomain "gear.tech-stop.org" according to 2013 DNS Census, which suggests CGI comms, but no links to it
  • 212.4.17.98: topbillingsite.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.122: b2bworldglobal.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.125: worldaroundyunnan.com. Hit.
  • 212.4.17.160: localtoglobalnews.com. Hit.
There were also some other reverse IP hits for fightwithoutrules.com, but no CIA websites there:
  • 204.11.56.25 - British Virgin Islands - Confluence Networks Inc - 2013-09-26. Many domains.
  • 208.91.197.19 - British Virgin Islands - Confluence Networks Inc - 2013-05-20. Many domains.
Other hits:
  • 208.91.197.132. rdns source: viewdns.info: "location" : "British Virgin Islands", "owner" : "Confluence Networks Inc", "lastseen" : "2013-09-26". So this is after the previous one, unlikely to be correct.
  • 205.178.189.131. source: securitytrails.com
212.4.18.129 sightseeingnews.com. UUNET in Cassano d'Adda - Italy. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 212.4.18.115 - 212.4.18.148. TODO expand. Interesting wide/sparse range? Or perhaps it's two separate ranges?
212.209.74.105 globalbaseballnews.com. UUNET in Sweden. Tested viewdns.info range: 212.209.74.100 - 212.209.74.132. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches
212.209.79.40 hydradraco.com. UUNET in Sweden. Found with: visual inspection of full 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup list just after globalbaseballnews.com. Tested viewdns.info range: 212.209.79.35 - 212.209.79.63
  • 212.209.79.34: fgnl.net. Hit. securitytrails.com provides IP history:
    • 212.209.79.34: 2008-09-01 - 2010-04-19.
    • 212.4.18.133: 2010-04-19 - 2019-06-19. Tested viewdns.info range: 212.4.18.122 - 212.4.18.148
    both under MCI Communications Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business.
  • 212.209.79.37: fitness-sources.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.40: hydradraco.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.41: noticiasdelmundolatino.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.42: suparakuvi.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.44: myigadgets.net. Unclear. 2010. tech. Contains some helpers to: iGoogle. This page is very interesting. and quite different from the others, as it contains highly specialized functionality. No known comms found. The choice of homepage languages is also very suspicious: Arabic, Farsi, French, Chinese and Spanish.
  • 212.209.79.46: cetusdelph.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.47: willtoworship.com. Hit. domainsbyproxy.com
  • 212.209.79.48: themvconnection.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.51: pi-resources.net. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.52: newel-adserver.com. Redirects to newel.com which is legit. cqcounter.com/whois/www/newel-adserver.com.html blank.
  • 212.209.79.53: ourscubaworld.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.58: tech-love-home.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.60: first-solo-aviation.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.79.61: china-destinations.org. Hit.
212.209.90.84 thenewseditor.com. UUNET in Sweden. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 212.209.90.64 - 212.209.90.99
  • 212.209.90.69: worldedgenews.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.72: talkingpointnews.info. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.74: globalinvestmentnews.net. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.75: prebitinvestment.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.77: energy-bulb.com 2011. English. energy. Comms not found, but has unarchived link to: web.archive.org/web/20110128182345/https://webmail.energy-bulb.com/login.html. CGI comms variant?
  • 212.209.90.79: freeblink.com. No archives for timerange, then legit. cqcounter.com/whois/www/freeblink.com.html off-style
  • 212.209.90.80: nsmovies.net. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.82: middleeastjournal.net. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.84: thenewseditor.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.87: newsandweathersource.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.89: pakisports.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.90: vriha-aesthetics.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.92: amishkanews.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.93: theentertainbiz.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.90.94: eurosportssummary.com. Hit.
  • 212.209.91.14: teracom.net. Legit
216.93.248.194 esmundonoticias.com. TWDX in Chelmsford - United States.
216.104.38.114 all-sport-headlines.com. SINGLEHOP-LLC in United States.
216.105.98.152: modernarabicnews.com. SAVVY-NET in United States. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches. Tested viewdns.info range: 216.105.98.125 - 216.105.98.167
  • 216.105.98.118:
  • 216.105.98.132: europeantravelcafe.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.134: fuenteneta.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.135: ilat-news.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.136: etherealinspirations.net. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.137: the-news-zone.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.138: photozoomnews.com. No archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/photozoomnews.com.html empty
  • 216.105.98.139: cultura-digital.net. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.140: uaeshoppingspree.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.141: jabarifootball.com. No archives. "Jabari" is a Swahili/Arabic name[ref]. cqcounter.com/whois/www/jabarifootball.com.html not found.
  • 216.105.98.142: globalreview-ar.com. No archives. Shame, could have been our first Argentinian site. cqcounter.com/whois/www/globalreview-ar.com.html empty.
  • 216.105.98.144: garanziadellasicurezza.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.145: montanismoaventura.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.146: large-format-news.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.147: nepalnewsbrief.com. Hit. dnshistory.org marks it as having IP 2010-03-10 -> 2010-08-15 216.169.148.94 [ref]. This range does feel a bit different from the others, too many broken archives, and relatively early ones too. Explored viewdns.info range: 216.169.148.84 - 216.169.148.104, empty for period. domainsbyproxy.com.
  • 216.105.98.148: teclafinance.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.149: entreman.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.152: modernarabicnews.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.153: global-headlines.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.154: everythingcricket.org. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.156: familyhealthonline.net. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.157: delacorne.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.158: econfutures.com. Hit.
  • 216.105.98.161: kstcloud.com. No archives. cqcounter.com/whois/www/kstcloud.com.html not found
219.90.61.123 journeystravelled.com. UUNET in Taiwan. Tested viewdns.info range: 219.90.61.100 - 219.90.61.133
219.90.62.243 fitness-dawg.com. UUNET in Taiwan. whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-219-0-0-0-1/pft?s=219.90.62.243. Net Type: Allocated to APNIC. Tested viewdns.info range: unknown - 219.90.62.255
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Hits without nearby IP hits Updated +Created
Here we list of suspected domains for which the correct IP was apparently not found since there are no neighbouring hits.
These are suspicious, and suggest either that we didn't obtain the correct reverse IP, or a change in CIA methodology from an older time at which they were not yet using the obscene IP ranges.
For example, in the case of inews-today.com, 2013 DNS Census gave one IP 193.203.49.212, but then viewdns.info gave another one 66.175.106.146 which fit into an existing IP range, and which assumed to be the correct IP of interest.
A similar case happened when we found IP 212.209.74.126 for headlines2day.com with dnshistory.org: dnshistory.org/historical-dns-records/a/headlines2day.com.
It is also possible that some of them are simply false positives so they should be taken with a grain of salt. Further reverse engineering e.g. of comms or HTML analysis might be able to exclude some of them.
It is interesting to note that Reuters seems to have featured disproportionately many hits from that range, one wonders why that happened. It is possible that they chose these because they actually didn't have any nearby hits to give away less obvious information, though they did pick some from the ranges as wel.
In what follows we list the domains with possible reverse IPs and what was explored so far for each. We consider IPs not in a range to be uncertain, and that instead their domains might have been previously in a range which we
dailynewsandsports.com. Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches
  • 216.119.129.94. rdns source: viewdns.info "location": "United States", "owner": "A2 Hosting, Inc.", "lastseen": "2012-04-13". Tested viewdns.info range: 216.119.129.85 - 216.119.129.86, 216.119.129.89 - 216.119.129.99, ran out of queries for 87 and 88
    • 216.119.129.90: eastdairies.com 2011-04-04. Promising name and date, but no archives alas.
    • 216.119.129.97: miideaco.com 2016-02-01
  • 216.119.129.114 Found with: 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup heuristic keyword searches, also present on viewdns.info but at a later date from previous "location": "United States", "owner": "A2 Hosting, Inc.", "lastseen": "2013-11-29". Tested viewdns.info range: 216.119.129.109 - 216.119.129.119
    • 216.119.129.110: dommoejmechty.com.ua. Legit.
    • 216.119.129.111: dailybeatz.com: Legit
    • 216.119.129.113:
      • audreygeneve.com
      • reyzheng.com
      • jacintorey.com
    • 216.119.129.114: dailynewsandsports.com. hit.
    • 216.119.129.115: afxchange.com legit/broken
    • 216.119.129.116: danafunkfinancial.com: legit
  • 208.73.33.194 on securitytrails.com
iranfootballsource.com:
iraniangoalkicks.com:
iraniangoals.com:
football-enthusiast.com:
  • 212.4.18.14: Tested viewdns.info range: 212.4.18.1 - 212.4.18.29. This is a curious case, rather close to 212.4.18.129 sightseeingnews.com, but not quite in the same range apparently. Viewdns.info also agrees on its history with only "212.4.18.14", "location" : "Milan - Italy", "owner" : "MCI Worldcom Italy Spa", "lastseen" : "2013-06-30" of interest.
cyhiraeth-intlnews.com:
europeannewsflash.com:
outlooknewscast.com:
farsi-newsandweather.com:
global-view-news.com:
health-men-today.com:
firstnewssource.com:
pars-technews.com:
newdaynewsonline.com:
sportsnewsfinder.com:
newsworldsite.com:
todaysnewsreports.net:
hassannews.net:
todayoutdoors.com:
globaltourist.net:
terrain-news.com:
intlnewsdaily.com
opensourcenewstoday.com:
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / How did Alexa find the domains? Updated +Created
It can't be HTML crawl because presumably there wouldn't have been links to those websites? Presumably this is why Common Crawl doesn't seem to have any hits.
So they must have had some kind of DNS A record database?
Or would IPv4 sweep have worked, without the Host header with the CIA's setup?
The same question also applies to the 2013 DNS Census. It has less hits, but still has many.
Whatever they did, we are so so glad that they did!
GNU parallel Updated +Created
The author Ole Tange answers every question about it on Stack Exchange. What a legend!
This program makes you respect GNU make a bit more. Good old make with -j can not only parallelize, but also take in account a dependency graph.
Some examples under:
man parallel_exampes
To get the input argument explicitly job number use the magic string {}, e.g.:
printf 'a\nb\nc\n' | parallel echo '{}'
sample output:
a
b
c
To get the job number use {#} as in:
printf 'a\nb\nc\n' | parallel echo '{} {#}'
sample output:
a 1
b 2
c 3
c 3
{%} contains which thread the job running in, e.g. if we limit it to 2 threads with -j2:
printf 'a\nb\nc\nd\n' | parallel -j2 echo '{} {#} {%}'
sample output:
a 1 1
b 2 1
c 3 2
d 4 1
The percent must be a reference to "split the inputs module the number of workers", and modulo uses the % symbol in many programming languages such as C.
To pass multiple CLI arguments per command you can use -X e.g.:
printf 'a\nb\nc\nd\n' | parallel -j2 -X echo '{} {#} {%}'
sample output:
a b 1 1
c d 2 2
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Internet Census 2012 Updated +Created
Does not appear to have any reverse IP hits unfortunately: opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/1951/dataset-of-domain-names/21077#21077. Likely only has domains that were explicitly advertised.
We could not find anything useful in it so far, but there is great potential to use this tool to find new IP ranges based on properties of existing IP ranges. Part of the problem is that the dataset is huge, and is split by top 256 bytes. But it would be reasonable to at least explore ranges with pre-existing known hits...
We have started looking for patterns on 66.* and 208.*, both selected as two relatively far away ranges that have a number of pre-existing hits. 208 should likely have been 212 considering later finds that put several ranges in 212.
tcpip_fp:
  • 66.104.
    • 66.104.175.41: grubbersworldrugbynews.com: 1346397300 SCAN(V=6.01%E=4%D=1/12%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%G=N%TM=387CAB9E%P=mipsel-openwrt-linux-gnu),ECN(R=N),T1(R=N),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=N),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
    • 66.104.175.48: worlddispatch.net: 1346816700 SCAN(V=6.01%E=4%D=1/2%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%DC=I%G=N%TM=1D5EA%P=mipsel-openwrt-linux-gnu),SEQ(SP=F8%GCD=3%ISR=109%TI=Z%TS=A),ECN(R=N),T1(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%S=O%A=S+%F=AS%RD=0%Q=),T1(R=N),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=0%S=Z%A=S+%F=AR%O=%RD=0%Q=),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
    • 66.104.175.49: webworldsports.com: 1346692500 SCAN(V=6.01%E=4%D=9/3%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%DC=I%G=N%TM=5044E96E%P=mipsel-openwrt-linux-gnu),SEQ(SP=105%GCD=1%ISR=108%TI=Z%TS=A),OPS(O1=M550ST11NW6%O2=M550ST11NW6%O3=M550NNT11NW6%O4=M550ST11NW6%O5=M550ST11NW6%O6=M550ST11),WIN(W1=1510%W2=1510%W3=1510%W4=1510%W5=1510%W6=1510),ECN(R=N),T1(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%S=O%A=S+%F=AS%RD=0%Q=),T1(R=N),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=0%S=Z%A=S+%F=AR%O=%RD=0%Q=),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
    • 66.104.175.50: fly-bybirdies.com: 1346822100 SCAN(V=6.01%E=4%D=1/1%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%DC=I%G=N%TM=14655%P=mipsel-openwrt-linux-gnu),SEQ(TI=Z%TS=A),ECN(R=N),T1(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%S=O%A=S+%F=AS%RD=0%Q=),T1(R=N),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=0%S=Z%A=S+%F=AR%O=%RD=0%Q=),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
    • 66.104.175.53: info-ology.net: 1346712300 SCAN(V=6.01%E=4%D=9/4%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%DC=I%G=N%TM=50453230%P=mipsel-openwrt-linux-gnu),SEQ(SP=FB%GCD=1%ISR=FF%TI=Z%TS=A),ECN(R=N),T1(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%S=O%A=S+%F=AS%RD=0%Q=),T1(R=N),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=0%S=Z%A=S+%F=AR%O=%RD=0%Q=),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
  • 66.175.106
    • 66.175.106.150: noticiasmusica.net: 1340077500 SCAN(V=5.51%D=1/3%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%G=N%TM=38707542%P=mipsel-openwrt-linux-gnu),ECN(R=N),T1(R=N),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=0%S=Z%A=S+%F=AR%O=%RD=0%Q=),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
    • 66.175.106.155: atomworldnews.com: 1345562100 SCAN(V=5.51%D=8/21%OT=22%CT=443%CU=%PV=N%DC=I%G=N%TM=5033A5F2%P=mips-openwrt-linux-gnu),SEQ(SP=FB%GCD=1%ISR=FC%TI=Z%TS=A),ECN(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=1540%O=M550NNSNW6%CC=N%Q=),T1(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%S=O%A=S+%F=AS%RD=0%Q=),T2(R=N),T3(R=N),T4(R=N),T5(R=Y%DF=Y%TG=40%W=0%S=Z%A=S+%F=AR%O=%RD=0%Q=),T6(R=N),T7(R=N),U1(R=N),IE(R=N)
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / ipinf.ru Updated +Created
alljohnny.com had a hit: ipinf.ru/domains/alljohnny.com/, and so Ciro started looking around... and a good number of other things have hits.
Not all of them, definitely less data than viewdns.info.
But they do reverse IP, and they show which nearby reverse IPs have hits on the same page, for free, which is great!
Shame their ordering is purely alphabetical, doesn't properly order the IPs so it is a bit of a pain, but we can handle it.
OMG, Russians!!!
The data here had a little bit of non-overlap from other sources. 4 new confirmed hits were found, plus 4 possible others that were left as candidates.
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / iraniangoalkicks.com Updated +Created
whoisxmlapi WHOIS history March 23, 2011:
  • Created Date: April 9, 2007 00:00:00 UTC
  • Updated Date: March 2, 2011 00:00:00 UTC
  • Expires Date: April 9, 2011 00:00:00 UTC
  • Registrant Name: domainsbyproxy.com
  • Name servers: dns1.registrar-servers.com|dns2.registrar-servers.com
whoisrequest.com/history/ mentions:
1 May, 2007: Domain created*, nameservers added. Nameservers:
  • ns1.qwknetllc.com
  • ns2.qwknetllc.com
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / iraniangoals.com Updated +Created
whoisxmlapi WHOIS history April 11, 2011:
  • 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
Folowed by reuters registration in 2022.
whoisrequest.com/history/ mentions:
  • 1 Apr, 2008: Domain created*, nameservers added. Nameservers:
  • ns1.webhostingpad.com
  • ns2.webhostingpad.com
Notably, the password is hardcoded and its hash is stored in the JavaScript itself. The result is then submitted back via a POST request to /cgi-bin/goal.cgi.
TODO: how is the SHA calculated? Appears to be manual.

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