anotherguy247
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2023
There was a previous thread about this privacyguides.org vs. privacytools.io. In this post I explain the guy behind Privacy Tools (Marco Wollank / Burung Hantu) and his history running scammy review websites. I also explain how I determined his real identity.
Back in September 2021 the team who ran PrivacyTools decided to rebrand their project (AT01, AO01, FP01) due to being unable to reach the founder who still had control over the domain name.
Marco was absent from the Privacy Tools project for a long time and so they removed him, (AT02, AO02, FP02). As Marco is a leech, he was happy to feed on free labor of others. Marco only returned when the free lunches stopped coming.
Then in April 2022 Marco wrote this rant (AT03, AO03, FP03). Marco accused Privacy Guides of trying to "steal PrivacyTools". His user /u/BurungHantu spams his angry blog post all over the internet as he is a linkfarmer.
He bitched about the SEO damage (AT04, AO04, FP04) to the Privacy Tools site, disregarding that it was a community effort for many years. The team had set up a 301 redirect to their new domain which Marco was still mad about in April 2022 (AT05, AO05, FP05)
and October 2022 (AT06, AO06, FP06):
Since then PrivacyTools really did sell out, which is not surprising as it would seem the show's talent wasn't easily replaced. Marco has resorted to using affiliate links to Binance and other KYC crypto exchanges and embarrassed himself with his clueless star ratings (AT07, AO07, FP07) (more about that later) that he randomly awarded projects. He removed respected VPNs (AT08, AO08, FP08) like Mullvad and IVPN and replaced them with options that have paying affiliate campaigns.
Ever since then, his Twitter account has become a stream of shitty memes and re-tweets with cryptocurrency crapware. Marco is proud of being anonymous or so he thinks. In his rant he spins it as a reason to trust him more:
He also tells lies within his blog post:
when he thinks nobody will bother to check as one former member points out (AO09, AT09, FP09), Marco made the commit with his official privacytoolsIO account:
In his rant he claims "he did most of the work (AT10, FP10)", though the team says that most of it (AT11, AO11, FP11) was replaced by better quality content (AT12, FP12). This does check out when looking at the site's largest pages:
This claim encouraged me to search the git commits to see how many he actually did. I searched for "BurungHantu" and "Burung Hantu". What I found was very few commits authored "
Most of them were merges, written by other people not things he actually authored, and out of the ones that he did they were quite minor like fixing a missing full stop or something like that.
So who is that one guy? There was a chat room and Marco pasted a link to a post on his oneguy.me domain. When people say that Privacy Tools is run by "one guy", he is reminded of the time when he "failed at privacy". It is often said by people who don't realize he has a company "One Guy Ltd" and that is tied to his real name. That wouldn't be a problem in itself if he wasn't trying to be anonymous. It is a problem for him and his branding because it relies on professing about how his recommendations can keep you "NSA proof", ie protect you from targeted surveillance which is simply not true.
I later found this post (AT20, AO20, FP20) which corroborates what I knew:
When looking at the domain between late 2014 (AT21, FP21), we get a pretty good idea how why Marco cares so much about SEO:
Later pages (AT22, FP22) had OneGuy - Investing Strategies for Value Investors on eToro in the title, which allows us to find him on eToro:
Further details that support the link are found in his blog post, such as his "reforestation" project and he says in his blog post he had enough to "financially retire".
If we look at a later version of his website from 2016 (AT23, FP23) we see him going on about his spammy review site:
The German there translates to:
Erfahrungen was his company website. The company is a fake review website where people pay for reviews or positive comments from so-called experts, (AT27, AO27, FP27). There's a GitHub Organization for Erfahrungen-com, (AT28, AO28, FP28) and also one with his real name Marco Wollank (AT29, AO29, FP29). He was also on Codepen (AT30). Marco even had a hand in writing some of the "reviews" (AT31, AO31, FP31). His reviews are like the ones he does for Privacy Tools.
From that website you can find his blog (AT32, AO32, FP32) in German, where Marco laments about being fat (AT33, AO33, FP33).
The review was about the product information on the company's website rather than his experience with the product. This is lot like his recommendations on PrivacyTools where he doesn't review the products themselves or know anything about the technology to write anything about it (AT34, AO34, FP34).
He just copies the marketing material from the company. He is the human imitation of ChatGPT.
I then found this (AT35, AO35, FP35) which suggests that Marco is exactly as I suggested above.
There is that domain again, and that's an interesting detail I found out more about his company One Guy Ltd (AT36, AO36, FP36).
and his other company Viral Video Web Ltd. (AT37, AO37, FP37).
There's also a mention on Cybo (AT38), which shows its not the only time he's had a venture like this.
PrivacyTools is run by a spammer who is happy to say anything for a dollar, the site has many bad recommendations which aren't good for your privacy. It should never be recommended as a source of information.
A bit of a deep dive into the charlatan BurungHantu of Privacy Tools.
Back in September 2021 the team who ran PrivacyTools decided to rebrand their project (AT01, AO01, FP01) due to being unable to reach the founder who still had control over the domain name.
Marco was absent from the Privacy Tools project for a long time and so they removed him, (AT02, AO02, FP02). As Marco is a leech, he was happy to feed on free labor of others. Marco only returned when the free lunches stopped coming.
Then in April 2022 Marco wrote this rant (AT03, AO03, FP03). Marco accused Privacy Guides of trying to "steal PrivacyTools". His user /u/BurungHantu spams his angry blog post all over the internet as he is a linkfarmer.
He bitched about the SEO damage (AT04, AO04, FP04) to the Privacy Tools site, disregarding that it was a community effort for many years. The team had set up a 301 redirect to their new domain which Marco was still mad about in April 2022 (AT05, AO05, FP05)
and October 2022 (AT06, AO06, FP06):
Since then PrivacyTools really did sell out, which is not surprising as it would seem the show's talent wasn't easily replaced. Marco has resorted to using affiliate links to Binance and other KYC crypto exchanges and embarrassed himself with his clueless star ratings (AT07, AO07, FP07) (more about that later) that he randomly awarded projects. He removed respected VPNs (AT08, AO08, FP08) like Mullvad and IVPN and replaced them with options that have paying affiliate campaigns.
Ever since then, his Twitter account has become a stream of shitty memes and re-tweets with cryptocurrency crapware. Marco is proud of being anonymous or so he thinks. In his rant he spins it as a reason to trust him more:
He also tells lies within his blog post:
when he thinks nobody will bother to check as one former member points out (AO09, AT09, FP09), Marco made the commit with his official privacytoolsIO account:
In his rant he claims "he did most of the work (AT10, FP10)", though the team says that most of it (AT11, AO11, FP11) was replaced by better quality content (AT12, FP12). This does check out when looking at the site's largest pages:
- /providers/email/ (AT13, FP13)
- /providers/vpn/ (AT14, FP14)
- /browsers (AT15, FP15)
This claim encouraged me to search the git commits to see how many he actually did. I searched for "BurungHantu" and "Burung Hantu". What I found was very few commits authored "
BurungHantu1605 <privacy@tuta.io>" and "Burung Hantu <OneGuy@MacBook-Bro.local>".Most of them were merges, written by other people not things he actually authored, and out of the ones that he did they were quite minor like fixing a missing full stop or something like that.
- Oct 8, 2020 - Aug 7 2017 (AT16, AO16, FP16)
- Aug 7, 2017 - Dec 5 2016 (AT17, AO17, FP17)
- Dec 4, 2016 - Jul 29 2015 (AT18, AO18, FP18)
- Jul 26 2015 - Jul 8 2015 (AT19, AO19, FP19)
.gitconfig so it defaulted to his Macbook username.So who is that one guy? There was a chat room and Marco pasted a link to a post on his oneguy.me domain. When people say that Privacy Tools is run by "one guy", he is reminded of the time when he "failed at privacy". It is often said by people who don't realize he has a company "One Guy Ltd" and that is tied to his real name. That wouldn't be a problem in itself if he wasn't trying to be anonymous. It is a problem for him and his branding because it relies on professing about how his recommendations can keep you "NSA proof", ie protect you from targeted surveillance which is simply not true.
I later found this post (AT20, AO20, FP20) which corroborates what I knew:
When looking at the domain between late 2014 (AT21, FP21), we get a pretty good idea how why Marco cares so much about SEO:
Later pages (AT22, FP22) had OneGuy - Investing Strategies for Value Investors on eToro in the title, which allows us to find him on eToro:
Further details that support the link are found in his blog post, such as his "reforestation" project and he says in his blog post he had enough to "financially retire".
If we look at a later version of his website from 2016 (AT23, FP23) we see him going on about his spammy review site:
The German there translates to:
What is amusing is he uses the same name (AT24, AO24, FP24) (his real name) everywhere, (AT25, AO25, FP25) on the internet. Then on Xing (AT26, AO26, FP26) we see Marco Wollank again:
Erfahrungen was his company website. The company is a fake review website where people pay for reviews or positive comments from so-called experts, (AT27, AO27, FP27). There's a GitHub Organization for Erfahrungen-com, (AT28, AO28, FP28) and also one with his real name Marco Wollank (AT29, AO29, FP29). He was also on Codepen (AT30). Marco even had a hand in writing some of the "reviews" (AT31, AO31, FP31). His reviews are like the ones he does for Privacy Tools.
From that website you can find his blog (AT32, AO32, FP32) in German, where Marco laments about being fat (AT33, AO33, FP33).
The review was about the product information on the company's website rather than his experience with the product. This is lot like his recommendations on PrivacyTools where he doesn't review the products themselves or know anything about the technology to write anything about it (AT34, AO34, FP34).
He just copies the marketing material from the company. He is the human imitation of ChatGPT.
I then found this (AT35, AO35, FP35) which suggests that Marco is exactly as I suggested above.
2011...2016: not free, partially manipulated:
fake forum with censorship by "Marco Wollank":
erfahrungen.com there you can buy false-positive "reviews"
The mailbox company is responsible (i.e. dubious): OneGuy Limited, the CEO: Marco Wollank
Rm 1104, Crawford House, 70 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong (as of 01/2017)
to Marco Wollank can also be found: his own surreptitious advertising at http://firmen.n-tv.de/erfahrungen.html
SEO Affiliate Marketing Brand Building (that's what such guys call lies)
at https://www.xing.com/profile/Marco_Wollank, spam@oneguy.me and according to
He is from Hamburg.Conrad Community Schließung » Hilfe für Technikfans
Wir schließen die Conrad Community ✓ So erhalten Sie weitere Infos zu spannenden Themen ✓ Jetzt informieren und Hilfestellung erhalten »blog.conrad.de
Whoever uses a shell company overseas for 100BP fund cannot be serious.
There is that domain again, and that's an interesting detail I found out more about his company One Guy Ltd (AT36, AO36, FP36).
and his other company Viral Video Web Ltd. (AT37, AO37, FP37).
There's also a mention on Cybo (AT38), which shows its not the only time he's had a venture like this.
PrivacyTools is run by a spammer who is happy to say anything for a dollar, the site has many bad recommendations which aren't good for your privacy. It should never be recommended as a source of information.
A bit of a deep dive into the charlatan BurungHantu of Privacy Tools.
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