[anti-abuse-wg] Bulletproof servers causing mischief on the internet

Hi,

As far as "taking down" bulletproof hosting, that is very hard to do as 
they often operate on jurisdictions that are easier for them to run 
their business.
RIPE NCC only allocates blocks of IP addresses to LIRs, which in turn 
LIRs allocate to end users. There have been cases where the LIR itself 
are cybercriminals that exploit this to get addresses for their 
activities.
There are other entities that do flag these blocks in an attempt to make 
the internet safer by flagging these IP blocks and even entire ASNs.

I think the most important thing to note, is that at the end of the day 
no one "controls" the internet. And RIPE's job is to coordinate these 
blocks of IPs assigned to LIRs/ISPs and maintain an up to date database 
of all these allocations. RIPE is not in any way an ISP, they don't have 
insights on the traffic of the internet including the IPs they assign 
(RIPE does operate RIS but it's out scope for this topic).

One of the entities that specializes in flagging and trying to bring 
down these criminals is spamhaus (https://www.spamhaus.org/). There are 
more, but I personally use the spamhaus blocklist so I'm randomly 
quoting this one.

It is also important to understand that RIPE will only revoke addresses 
if the LIR is going against RIPE's policies. Since RIPE covers many 
regions and jurisdictions it makes the job much harder. As far as I 
know, sending SPAM email and other type or bulletproof hosting 
activities, is technically not a RIPE policy violation. Providing false 
contact information, and false documentation to obtain number resources 
is a policy violation.

RIPE must always maintain a very neutral position in all of this, and as 
you mention a Netflix documentary (I'm assuming it was "Cyberbunker"?) 
where they were in fact a LIR, those addresses were not revoked, rather 
than sold to another company. The documentary reflects this.

Also, RIPE provides registration services for these LIRs. Nothing else. 
Without RIPE's job you wouldn't know who was controlling these blocks, 
including abuse contacts.

If you cannot get in contact with a LIR through an abuse contact, then 
you can contact the registrant's local authorities. If such entity does 
not exists, then this is a policy violation and the LIR account will be 
revoked including the IPs registered to it.

I personally blame ISPs involved in providing connectivity as they 
probably are aware of weird traffic patterns (such as IP spoofing), and 
might be contacted every once in a while as to why they are providing 
connectivity to these other, smaller, ISPs.

Also I believe that some of the activities you described happen on the 
"Tor" network, the .onion websites, which are a bit out of scope here.

At the end of the day, there is very little RIPE can do about this. As I 
mentioned on my other email, IP leasing happens a lot nowadays with IPv4 
shortage so revoking a LIR account or addresses that were used for these 
activities wouldn't even punish the scammers. You would be punishing an 
ISP that allocated addresses to scammers. And I think you can see where 
the legal fights begin, RIPE does not want to be sued by ISPs.


Best regards,



Tomás Leite de Castro


On 2024-01-17 23:00, OSINTGuardian wrote:
> hi tomás,
> 
> thanks for answering me
> 
> I understand that RIPE NCC's job is not to monitor the internet, but
> unfortunately criminals see that they do not get consequences and
> decide to join the bulletproof hosting business. People financed by
> organized crime see this as a business opportunity.
> 
> and hackers, pedophiles, scammers, drug dealers, arms dealers and
> other people see an opportunity to be a customer of these bulletproof
> hosting. criminals see that they get no consequences for doing this
> and make a lot of money.
> 
> If RIPE NCC creates an abuse team that monitors that no one uses RIPE
> NCC as a form of business model to create bulletproof servers to sell
> to criminal networks, the Internet would become a cleaner place.
> It became a business model to ignore abuse reports sent by email to
> hosting companies.
> 
> There is a wiki on Wikipedia about bulletproof servers that describes
> the same thing, documentaries on Netflix and series that explain how
> criminals do illegal activities on the Internet using bulletproof
> hosting. If there is no prompt action against this, the only one who
> will benefit is organized crime.
> 
> What can be done against a person who operates a bulletproof server?:
> From what I've noticed, you said that restrictions apply to LIRs. How
> do they punish people who operate bulletproof servers? And what to do
> when someone has a lot of evidence that a person operates bulletproof
> hosting and uses it to sell services to dark net criminals?
> 
> I myself spoke to bulletproof hosting owners, and they feel totally
> immune and untouchable. They feel that no one can do anything against
> them, many of them are in countries with few laws regarding the
> Internet and they abuse this, what resources are there to combat this?
> 
> or is there nothing to do?
> ">
> On ene. 17 2024, at 6:05 pm, Tomás Oliveira Valente Leite de Castro
> via anti-abuse-wg <anti-abuse-wg at ripe.net> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I have been wondering for a while about this same issue. And I guess
>> 
>> there are both pros and cons about RIPE providing registration
>> services
>> to such IP addresses.
>> As you've stated, contacting them most of the time is useless. But
>> most
>> of the cases these IPs are blacklisted or on DROP-lists (spamhaus
>> for
>> example)
>> 
>> I believe RIPE NCC's job is not to police the internet, but to
>> provide
>> registration services. However RIPE should guarantee that the
>> registrant's data is correct and up to date. This includes a proper
>> abuse contact.
>> 
>> As for bulletproof hosting, it is at the best interest of the
>> Internet
>> that these IPs remain duly registered. There are many cases where
>> the
>> original registrant might not even be properly aware, or at fault
>> when
>> such activities happen with their addressing.
>> The most effective action is to contact the upstream ISPs and cut
>> their
>> connectivity.
>> 
>> If such a system would be implemented by RIPE, I think it should be
>> oriented towards making sure the abuse contacts are up to date and
>> reachable. Rather than to police about the use of the addresses. As
>> ultimately the connectivity for such activities is provided by ISPs.
>> 
>> I do see the analogy you made with ICANN but registering a domain on
>> the
>> internet is much more reachable to everyone when comparing to IP
>> space,
>> when most of that space is reassigned from upstream ISPs. Also
>> addresses
>> are assigned in blocks, when domains are assigned individually.
>> 
>> Please understand that I don't condone at all bulletproof hosting or
>> 
>> such activities in way. In fact it should be stopped. But the most
>> effective action is likely not from RIPE to just deregister such
>> resources when abuse happens or when an abuse contact is incorrect.
>> It
>> is worth noting that RIPE does apply restrictions to LIRs that
>> repeatedly cause issues, and this includes falsifying contact
>> information.
>> 
>> I think this is worth discussing if more restrictive actions should
>> be
>> taken towards such LIRs where illegal activities such as
>> bulletproofing
>> are the main business. But I'm worried about RIPE NCC's ability to
>> verify on abuse that happens on the internet.
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> 
>> Tomás Leite de Castro
>> 
>> On 2024-01-17 19:52, OSINTGuardian wrote:
>>> hi,
>>> 
>>> There are more and more bulletproof hosting in the world every
>> month
>>> and they are causing more and more chaos, feeding the dark web by
>>> providing servers to criminals of all kinds who use the servers on
>>> .onion websites in Tor and flooding the clear web with illegal
>>> content.
>>> 
>>> There is a bulletproof hosting market that is even openly
>> promoted, it
>>> is as easy to find companies that provide bulletproof servers as
>>> searching on Google, hacker forums or simple internet websites
>> that
>>> provide lists of bulletproof hosting companies.
>>> 
>>> The business model of these companies is to ignore reports of
>> abuse of
>>> illegal content, to look the other way when someone uploads
>> illegal
>>> content. This is openly their business model, what does RIPE NCC
>> do
>>> about this?
>>> 
>>> RIPE NCC provides IP addresses to many of these companies with
>>> bulletproof servers that are then used by criminals on the
>> Internet,
>>> strengthening organized crime.
>>> 
>>> ICANN publicly has an abuse reporting form, where users can report
>> if
>>> a company provides bulletproof domains or ignores abuse reports.
>> If
>>> RIPE NCC did this same thing, the internet would become a better
>>> place.
>>> 
>>> If RIPE NCC did this and also other IP address accreditors, they
>> would
>>> greatly affect criminals on the Internet and therefore the
>> Internet
>>> would become a slightly safer place than it is today. Bulletproof
>>> server companies would be afraid of being caught by RIPE NCC
>>> committing these violations. Unfortunately, these companies
>> currently
>>> feel enough freedom to do this, that they even show themselves
>>> publicly.
>>> 
>>> Is RIPE NCC planning to do anything against this?
>>> 
>>> - Claudia Lopez
>>> OSINTGuardian
>> 
>> --
>> 
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