CIA 2010 covert communication websites Updated +Created
This article is about covert agent communication channel websites used by the CIA in many countries from the late 2000s until the early 2010s, when they were uncovered by counter intelligence of the targeted countries circa 2011-2013. This discovery led to the imprisonment and execution of several assets in Iran and China, and subsequent shutdown of the channel.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/CIA_Star_Wars_website_promo.jpg
Previous whispers had been heard in 2017 but without clear mention of websites: www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html:
Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.
[...]
From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, [...] the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. [...] One was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.
Most notably, starting in 2008, CIA contractor John Reidy started raising concerns about the security of the communication systems used, but he was silenced and ignored, leading to catastrophe.[ref][ref]
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/Yahoo_CIA_website_article.png
Then in September 2022 a few specific websites were finally reported by Reuters: www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spies-iran/, henceforth known only as "the Reuters article" in this article.
Figure 2.
Reuters reconstruction of what the applet would have looked like
. Source.
Figure 3. . Source. The Reuters article only gave one URL explicitly: iraniangoals.com. But most others could be found by inspecting the HTML of the screenshots provided, except for the Carson website.
Ciro Santilli heard about the 2018 article at around 2020 while studying for his China campaign because the websites had been used to take down the Chinese CIA network in China. He even asked on Quora: www.quora.com/What-were-some-examples-of-the-websites-that-the-CIA-used-around-2010-as-a-communication-mechanism-for-its-spies-in-China-and-Iran-but-were-later-found-and-used-to-take-down-their-spy-networks but there were no publicly known domains at the time to serve as a starting point. Chris, Electrical Engineer and former Avionics Tech in the US Navy, even replied suggesting that obviously the CIA is so competent that it would never ever have its sites leaked like that:
Seriously a dumb question.
So when Ciro Santilli heard about the 2022 article almost a year after publication, and being a half-arsed web developer himself, he knew he had to try and find some of the domains himself using the newly available information! It was an irresistible real-life capture the flag. The thing is, everyone who has ever developed a website knows that its attack surface is about the size of Texas, and the potential for fingerprinting is off the charts with so many bits and pieces sticking out. Chris, get fucked.
Figure 4.
"Seriously a dumb question" Quora answer by Chris from the US Navy
. Source.
In particular, it is fun to have such a clear and visible to anyone examples of the USA spying on its own allies in the form of Wayback Machine archives.
Given that it was reported that there were "more than 350" such websites, it would be really cool if we could uncover more of those websites ourselves beyond the 9 domains reported by Reuters!
This article documents the list of extremely likely candidates Ciro has found so far, mostly using:
more details on methods also follow. It is still far from the 885 websites reported by citizenlabs, so there must be key techniques missing. But the fact that there are no Google Search hits for the domains or IPs (except in bulk e.g. in expired domain trackers) indicates that these might not have been previously clearly publicly disclosed.
If anyone can find others, or has better techniques: Section "How to contact Ciro Santilli". The techniques used so far have been very heuristic, and that added to the limited amount of data makes it almost certain that several IP ranges have been missed. There are two types of contributions that would be possible:
Perhaps the current heuristically obtained data can serve as a good starting for a more data-oriented search that will eventually find a valuable fingerprint which brings the entire network out.
Disclaimer: the network fell in 2013, followed by fully public disclosures in 2018 and 2022, so we believe it is now more than safe for the public to know what can still be uncovered about the events that took place. The main author's political bias is strongly pro-democracy and anti-dictatorship.
May this list serve as a tribute to those who spent their days making, using, and uncovering these websites under the shadows.
If you want to go into one of the best OSINT CTFs of your life, stop reading now and see how many Web Archives you can find starting only from the Reuters article as Ciro did. Some guidelines:
  • there was no ultra-clean fingerprint found yet. Some intuitive and somewhat guessy data analysis was needed. But when you clean the data correctly and make good guesses, many hits follow, it feels so good
  • nothing was paid for data. But using cybercafe Wifi's for a few extra IPs may help.
Figure 5.
viewdns.info activegameinfo.com domain to IP
. Source.
Figure 6.
viewdns.info aroundthemiddleeast.com IP to domain
. Source.
Figure 7. . Source. This source provided valuable historical domain to IP data. It was likely extracted with an illegal botnet. Data excerpt from the CSVs:
amazon.com,2012-02-01T21:33:36,72.21.194.1
amazon.com,2012-02-01T21:33:36,72.21.211.176
amazon.com,2013-10-02T19:03:39,72.21.194.212
amazon.com,2013-10-02T19:03:39,72.21.215.232
amazon.com.au,2012-02-10T08:03:38,207.171.166.22
amazon.com.au,2012-02-10T08:03:38,72.21.206.80
google.com,2012-01-28T05:33:40,74.125.159.103
google.com,2012-01-28T05:33:40,74.125.159.104
google.com,2013-10-02T19:02:35,74.125.239.41
google.com,2013-10-02T19:02:35,74.125.239.46
Figure 9.
You can never have enough Wayback Machine tabs open
. This is how the end of the fingerprint pipeline looks like: as many tabs as you have the patience to go through one by one!
Figure 10.
Expired domain names by day 2011
. Source. The scraping of expired domain trackers to Github was one of the positive outcomes of this project.
Video 2.
Compromised Comms by Darknet Diaries (2023)
Source.
It was the YouTube suggestion for this video that made Ciro Santilli aware of the Reuters article almost one year after its publication, which kickstarted his research on the topic.
Full podcast transcript: darknetdiaries.com/transcript/75/
Ciro Santilli pinged the Podcast's host Jack Rhysider on Twitter and he ACK'ed which is cool, though he was skeptical about the strength of the fingerprints found, and didn't reply when clarification was offered. Perhaps the material is just not impactful enough for him to produce any new content based on it. Or also perhaps it comes too close to sources and methods for his own good as a presumably American citizen.
CIA 2010 covert communication websites / 2013 DNS Census virtual host cleanup Updated +Created
We've noticed that often when there is a hit range:
  • there is only one IP for each domain
  • there is a range of about 20-30 of those
and that this does not seem to be that common. Let's see if that is a reasonable fingerprint or not.
Note that although this is the most common case, we have found multiple hits that viewdns.info maps to the same IP.
First we create a table u (unique) that only have domains which are the only domain for an IP, let's see by how much that lowers the 191 M total unique domains:
time sqlite3 u.sqlite 'create table t (d text, i text)'
time sqlite3 av.sqlite -cmd "attach 'u.sqlite' as u" "insert into u.t select min(d) as d, min(i) as i from t where d not like '%.%.%' group by i having count(distinct d) = 1"
The not like '%.%.%' removes subdomains from the counts so that CGI comms are still included, and distinct in count(distinct is because we have multiple entries at different timestamps for some of the hits.
Let's start with the 208 subset to see how it goes:
time sqlite3 av.sqlite -cmd "attach 'u.sqlite' as u" "insert into u.t select min(d) as d, min(i) as i from t where i glob '208.*' and d not like '%.%.%' and (d like '%.com' or d like '%.net') group by i having count(distinct d) = 1"
OK, after we fixed bugs with the above we are down to 4 million lines with unique domain/IP pairs and which contains all of the original hits! Almost certainly more are to be found!
This data is so valuable that we've decided to upload it to: archive.org/details/2013-dns-census-a-novirt.csv Format:
8,chrisjmcgregor.com
11,80end.com
28,fine5.net
38,bestarabictv.com
49,xy005.com
50,cmsasoccer.com
80,museemontpellier.net
100,newtiger.com
108,lps-promptservice.com
111,bridesmaiddressesshow.com
The numbers of the first column are the IPs as a 32-bit integer representation, which is more useful to search for ranges in.
To make a histogram with the distribution of the single hostname IPs:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
bin=$((2**24))
sqlite3 2013-dns-census-a-novirt.sqlite -cmd '.mode csv' >2013-dns-census-a-novirt-hist.csv <<EOF
select i, sum(cnt) from (
  select floor(i/${bin}) as i,
         count(*) as cnt
    from t
    group by 1
  union
  select *, 0 as cnt from generate_series(0, 255)
)
group by i
EOF
gnuplot \
  -e 'set terminal svg size 1200, 800' \
  -e 'set output "2013-dns-census-a-novirt-hist.svg"' \
  -e 'set datafile separator ","' \
  -e 'set tics scale 0' \
  -e 'unset key' \
  -e 'set xrange[0:255]' \
  -e 'set title "Counts of IPs with a single hostname"' \
  -e 'set xlabel "IPv4 first byte"' \
  -e 'set ylabel "count"' \
  -e 'plot "2013-dns-census-a-novirt-hist.csv" using 1:2:1 with labels' \
;
Which gives the following useless noise, there is basically no pattern:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/cia-2010-covert-communication-websites/2013-dns-census-a-novirt-hist.svg
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