[Resolved] Domain Registrar & Epik's Seizure

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Should we sue Epik LLC?

  • Yes, I'll chip in.

    Votes: 1,709 55.2%
  • Yes, but I'm broke.

    Votes: 1,220 39.4%
  • No.

    Votes: 79 2.6%
  • No, but I'll chip in regardless.

    Votes: 86 2.8%

  • Total voters
    3,094
" 🧊 kiwifarms.us is under clientHold by German intermediary registrar 1API."

what does this mean?
 
The registrar agents listed as Epik's new owners have zero experience in the field, and they hold the same-ish positions for the Registrar company. This was done to obscure the actual owners. Epik is not owned by them, it's owned by someone who doesn't want his name anywhere.

So wait, what? Has Epik basically ceased to exist?

It could actually be a good thing if the idiots who bought it have now inherited its liabilities.

Why would they do that though?
Here are my schizo theories -

Incredibly likely option:
Someone bought Epik to gut it for value, they don't care what's going on with social media because they're dismantling it and probably didn't realize an employee had sperged out until it became news. Epik was shedding domains at a rate that would leave it insolvent within a year or two, possibly less. They'd be buying a sinking ship to scrap the hull.

Less likely option:
Rob Monster is back and trying (and failing) to run a new grift, this time for retards on the left.

Least likely but funniest option:
A tranny with too much money bought it to fuck with Jersh specifically. In which case who knows what the fuck is going on.
 
" 🧊 kiwifarms.us is under clientHold by German intermediary registrar 1API."

what does this mean?
According to https://icann.org/epp#clientHold (which is what the Domain Status field in whois links to), it just means that the registrar doesn't want your domain to resolve for whatever reason. The actual reason isn't public, you are meant to contact them and fix whatever issue they have. 1API's support droids are probably hard at work right now bouncing Josh from department to another.
 
Hold the phone, what's this that just popped up on the normie thread?!


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Epik LLC released a press release on it's website (A1,A2) on 02/10/2024 titled "Epik Cuts Ties With Far-Right Bad Actors, Switches Focus to Entrepreneurs and Small Business". They list 7 websites that they no longer host including kiwifarms.net.

Now that ICANN accreditation has been transferred to Epik LLC, the company proudly announces its commitment to serving entrepreneurs and small business owners, in alignment with its parent company, Registered Agents Inc.
Under its previous ownership, Epik was linked to far-right websites and was known as a “safe haven” for specific users. This will no longer be the case under the new leadership. Epik is shifting its focus to overall user experience rather than accommodating a few individuals and their harmful views. Gone are the days of Epik allowing hate speech, in violation of terms of service, to be hosted on its platform.
Epik now makes it clear that it is not aligned with intolerance or hatred of any kind. The company’s primary focus is the safety of its customers and the public.
To help with this transition, Epik has taken the following steps:
  • Focusing its resources on offering services to entrepreneurs and small business owners.
  • Undergoing an expansive change to the company’s terms of service and removing customers found to be in violation of Epik’s terms, or applicable laws.
  • Updating public and internal procedures to better serve its customers.
The company’s outdated Wikipedia page lists Epik as the registrar for a number of far-right websites—but WHOIS search results captured on 2/9/2024 show that Epik no longer acts as the registrar for these domains:

Sites No Longer Hosted at Epik:​

gab.com
bitchute.com
dailystormer.in
8kun.top
infowars.com
kiwifarms.net
ar15.com

Epik understands that domain names are an essential part of a company’s identity, image and reputation. The company’s goal is to help customers build a complete online presence—by offering a wide variety of domain extensions, along with a host of domain, aftermarket, and website tools at affordable prices. Epik is the ideal domain service for beginners and seasoned veterans.
 
I get the rest, but this?
Lefties hate guns and anything associated with them.

More specifically, they hate the idea of normal citizens having guns, because that means they have the ability to defend themselves. And since Arfcom users are huge 2A proponents, they're the height of wrongthink, and must be deplatformed.
 
More specifically, they hate the idea of normal citizens having guns
Orwell is spinning in his grave.

But then, the modern americanised left don't like him any more, do they? He's the wrong sort of socialist; he thought people should be free to think and speak, and hated most self-professed socialists for being arrogant men of letters with no experience of the real world.
 
This is probably remembered by everyone better than me, but I found this article from 2022 about the situation when Path/Corey Barnhill were deplatforming the Farms, and I found it interesting that Epic did almost exactly what Path did to Null and Pom, the owner of Skidbin- accuse both websites of having CP and the removal of the farms coming from a "sealed court order" but refusing to point out where the infringing content was, acknowledge when material was taken down or proven to not be CP, or communicate at all really. Makes one wonder if Corey was directly involved with those tweets or if he just directed a group of pedophile/tranny friends on what worked in the past.
 
Urge... to fuck with... boomer niggers... rising...
to be fair a boomer who's also a nog and ALSO engaged in onlines probably isn't so nig of a nog, so to speak
there's a lot of blacks who really fucking loath the modern African American (((tm))) with a vitriol us mayo goblins can only dream of
 
to be fair a boomer who's also a nog and ALSO engaged in onlines probably isn't so nig of a nog, so to speak
there's a lot of blacks who really fucking loath the modern African American (((tm))) with a vitriol us mayo goblins can only dream of
ngl a forum full of real life Uncle Ruckus-like black dudes sounds based.
 
Wired(A) wrote a story on Registered Agents Inc a few days ago which includes quotes from former employees.

Inside a drab one-story office building in Post Falls, Idaho, a little-known American company has built the machinery that enables hundreds of thousands of businesses to operate in near-total secrecy.

The company, Registered Agents Inc., is a one-stop shop for people seeking to incorporate a business in any US state, often in those with advantageous tax policies, while obscuring their identities. According to five former employees of Registered Agents Inc. or its subsidiaries, the company routinely incorporates thousands of businesses on behalf of its customers using fake personas. Former Registered Agents Inc. employees say that the company’s widespread use of personas is an outgrowth of its founder’s obsession with privacy and a desire to push the boundaries of incorporation laws.

The registered agent industry, which incorporates businesses and acts as a point of contact for legal notices, is already effective at masking the identity of who owns a company. Registered agents have many legitimate uses, and states often require that a company have a registered agent. In some instances, however, these services have benefited “oligarchs, criminals, and online scammers,” according to a 2022 investigation by The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Experts say a lack of adequate federal and state regulations of registered agents helps to make the United States a hotbed for money-laundering and other shady business dealings.

In a typical scenario, a registered agent would incorporate a company on behalf of a customer. An employee of the registered agent company would list their name on the incorporation documents, sometimes providing the company’s email address and office as contact information. That process provides business owners one layer of secrecy, preventing anyone who looks at state records from determining the real owner of a company.
Registered Agents Inc., according to the former employees, routinely goes one step further, incorporating companies in the names of fictional personas created by the company’s founder, Dan Keen. It’s unclear what benefit Registered Agents Inc. or its customers receive when a company is incorporated by a fake identity.


Around the country, at least 1,463 companies incorporated by Registered Agents Inc. list a woman named Riley Park as an organizer or agent, according to a WIRED analysis of publicly available incorporation documents. But Riley Park isn’t a real person, the former employees say. She’s one of multiple fake personas used by Registered Agents Inc. Former employees identified at least 10 fake personas used by the company, including David Roberts, Drake Forester, and Morgan Noble.

Using business records made public by OpenCorporates, a website that shares and standardizes information sourced from business registries around the world, WIRED found 36,257 business listing company officers who share names that former employees say are fake. At least 3,735 of these businesses’ incorporation paperwork references Registered Agents Inc., either explicitly in the paperwork or by using an address known to former employees as belonging to Registered Agents Inc.

WIRED’s analysis found that these companies are registered in 20 different states and appear to provide services ranging from law enforcement training to landscaping. Many of these companies with officers using an alleged fake name were registered to addresses known by sources to belong to Registered Agents Inc. For example, six allegedly fake names were listed as officers for 887 of businesses registered to the same address in Sheridan, Wyoming—an office of Registered Agents Inc.




Havre was once listed on Registered Agent Inc.’s website as the company’s president and executive director. Havre has helped register 491 companies with Registered Agents Inc., WIRED found. He’s also an entirely fabricated persona, five former employees say, an invention of Dan Keen.

That 2015 document is the earliest recorded instance of the company using fake names identified by WIRED. Havre’s name was removed from the company’s website in 2022 following inquiries from The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The Wyoming incorporation paperwork viewed by WIRED includes the full text of the state law against filing a false document, reminding registrants that doing so may be a felony punishable by up to two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. Former employees say that customers of Registered Agents Inc. typically aren’t aware that a fake name is used to sign their company’s incorporation documents.

Provided a copy of the Wyoming incorporation document, experts say using a fake person would likely violate the law. “This does look like it requires a real person to sign—Riley Park would seemingly be in violation,” says Gary Kalman, the executive director of Transparency International US, an anti-corruption group.

Former Registered Agents Inc. employees allege that Keen justified using fake names by saying it was a way to protect employees from being drawn into legal battles and being forced to testify about the company’s customers.

The laws for incorporating companies in America are decided at the state level, allowing a prospective business owner to shop around based on tax advantages, anonymity rules, and other considerations. Many state offices don’t fully investigate filings to determine if the signatories are legitimate, former employees of Registered Agents Inc. say.

“There is no federal requirement, there is no state-level requirement that these registered agents have any code of ethics. There’s no anything,” says Sarah Beth Felix, an expert on financial transparency. “For being essential gatekeepers to legitimize businesses, they’re grossly unregulated.”

Former employees say that the registered agents industry benefits from relaxed incorporation laws in states like Wyoming and Montana, where registering a completely anonymous company is as simple as paying a registered agent service as little as $200. That makes the US an appealing location for illicit financial activity even before the added layer of opacity by a registered agent.

According to two former employees, the company doesn’t screen to see if its customers are real people, or even if their email addresses are legitimate. Former employees say they raised concerns about not knowing the true identity of all of their customers to company leadership, but were dismissed. Experts and former employees said that verifying the identity of its customers is often not required for registered agents.

“You could say your name was Billy Bob and your email was BillyBob123, and we would have created an LLC for you,” the former software developer says.
“Dan takes it almost to an extreme. He tries to maximize what the laws allow in each state,” says Don Evans, who worked in a chief technical officer role at the company. “If people find ways to use his services that are in the gray area, he would turn a cheek to it.”


SINCE 2008, DAN Keen has grown his business from a small company serving customers in the Pacific Northwest to a major national player in what’s known as the corporate formation industry. The company and its competitors offer the ability to incorporate a business in the state of a customer’s choosing and receive mail and legal notices.

Keen started the company after running a tree trimming and landscaping business. Former employees said Keen worked tirelessly to build the business, often sending emails at all hours of the night.

“Dan put in a lot of effort, he worked nonstop,” says Matt MacKenzie, who worked as a legal compliance specialist for more than 11 years and was one of the company’s earliest employees.

When the company was a small upstart, Keen regularly listed his name on the formation documents of the company and its various subsidiaries in states across America. “It wasn't until down the road a couple years later, where he started wanting to use full-on fake names and take his name off all the corporate paperwork for Registered Agents Inc.,” MacKenzie says.

Keen is described by former employees as a driven but eccentric businessman who is prone to micromanagement and sudden shifts in mood. Keen dresses modestly, former employees say, wearing shorts and flannel shirts, and is an avid skier and outdoorsman.

Keen often took a passive aggressive approach with his staff, according to six former employees. Two recounted Keen begrudgingly offering health care plans to employees after being told it was required by the Affordable Care Act, allegedly telling his staff they were “whiners and complainers” for asking for it.

Multiple former employees described Keen as “inappropriate,” saying he often made comments about employees' physical appearance. Two former employees described him as making misogynistic statements, which allegedly included making sexual comments about women and frequently questioning their ability to perform their job.

Several former employees questioned the high-security nature of the office, which they say was filled with security cameras and required them to lock their cell phones in boxes. Slyusarev, Registered Agents Inc.’s former senior software engineer, says the phone system, which he says he installed, was capable of surreptitiously recording employee phone calls.

Former employees say that Keen chafed at government regulations and exercised complete control over the company and its operations. Keen has no website or social media profiles and doesn't give interviews about his business.

“He thinks people are out to get him, or out to get the company,” Evans, the former senior employee, claims.

Details about its inner workings, including the ownership and management structure, are concealed from employees, who say they were discouraged from discussing it at the office. And the practice of using fake personas extends even to Registered Agents Inc.’s own workers.

When Don Evans began interviewing at Registered Agents Inc., he recalled first speaking over LinkedIn with Diane Brunner, who identified herself as a recruiter at the company. When he arrived at the office for an interview, he asked to speak with Brunner and was told nobody by that name works at the company.

Jack Stephenson, who claims to be a vice president and client relations director at Registered Agents Inc. on LinkedIn, is another fake persona, employees say. Stephenson frequently comments on the registered agents industry on LinkedIn. He lists a Bachelor of Business Administration from Utah State University on his profile, but an official from the university told WIRED they couldn’t find any records pertaining to Jack Stephenson.

The registered agent industry, which incorporates businesses and acts as a point of contact for legal notices, is already effective at masking the identity of who owns a company. Registered agents have many legitimate uses, and states often require that a company have a registered agent. In some instances, however, these services have benefited “oligarchs, criminals, and online scammers,” according to a 2022 investigation by The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Experts say a lack of adequate federal and state regulations of registered agents helps to make the United States a hotbed for money-laundering and other shady business dealings.
In a typical scenario, a registered agent would incorporate a company on behalf of a customer. An employee of the registered agent company would list their name on the incorporation documents, sometimes providing the company’s email address and office as contact information. That process provides business owners one layer of secrecy, preventing anyone who looks at state records from determining the real owner of a company.
Registered Agents Inc., according to the former employees, routinely goes one step further, incorporating companies in the names of fictional personas created by the company’s founder, Dan Keen. It’s unclear what benefit Registered Agents Inc. or its customers receive when a company is incorporated by a fake identity.
Registered Agents Inc. declined to fully answer WIRED’s detailed set of questions about its business practices.
“To put it plainly, your assertions in this question set are outdated and patently wrong about Registered Agents Inc.,” the company said in a statement. “Therefore, at this time Registered Agents Inc. will provide no comment as it is apparent that you, Wired and its editors attempt [to] fit a pre-arranged narrative through publishing false facts and other blatant lies.”
Registered Agents Inc. has expanded beyond incorporation services, building custom software to manage entire businesses. Last year, it acquired Epik, a domain registrar and web hosting company that had previously catered to far-right extremists.
Much of the company’s high-level operations and development take place in the Pacific Northwest, including Spokane, Washington, and Post Falls, Idaho. The company has two major subsidiaries: Two Barrels LLC, which develops software, and Corporate Tools LLC, which enables its customers to manage the filings of multiple businesses.
The Wyoming incorporation paperwork viewed by WIRED includes the full text of the state law against filing a false document, reminding registrants that doing so may be a felony punishable by up to two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. Former employees say that customers of Registered Agents Inc. typically aren’t aware that a fake name is used to sign their company’s incorporation documents.
SINCE 2008, DAN Keen has grown his business from a small company serving customers in the Pacific Northwest to a major national player in what’s known as the corporate formation industry. The company and its competitors offer the ability to incorporate a business in the state of a customer’s choosing and receive mail and legal notices.

(He may possibly be the tweeter)
Keen started the company after running a tree trimming and landscaping business. Former employees said Keen worked tirelessly to build the business, often sending emails at all hours of the night.
Keen is described by former employees as a driven but eccentric businessman who is prone to micromanagement and sudden shifts in mood.
Keen often took a passive aggressive approach with his staff, according to six former employees. Two recounted Keen begrudgingly offering health care plans to employees after being told it was required by the Affordable Care Act, allegedly telling his staff they were “whiners and complainers” for asking for it.
(A true professional)
Multiple former employees described Keen as “inappropriate,” saying he often made comments about employees' physical appearance. Two former employees described him as making misogynistic statements, which allegedly included making sexual comments about women and frequently questioning their ability to perform their job.
Several former employees questioned the high-security nature of the office, which they say was filled with security cameras and required them to lock their cell phones in boxes. Slyusarev, Registered Agents Inc.’s former senior software engineer, says the phone system, which he says he installed, was capable of surreptitiously recording employee phone calls.
“He thinks people are out to get him, or out to get the company,” Evans, the former senior employee, claims.
Details about its inner workings, including the ownership and management structure, are concealed from employees, who say they were discouraged from discussing it at the office. And the practice of using fake personas extends even to Registered Agents Inc.’s own workers.
2barrels DEI
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2barrels Who We Are
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