This is either a joke or a scam/honeypot designed to fool gullible westerners.
Kosovo definitely is a corrupt country, but it doesn't mean you don't have to keep your criminal activities on the low. If you attract the attention of the western agencies, they will absolutely go after you. This isn't Russia, they're west-aligned and they don't want to annoy their western partners too much.
Very similar to this were a handful of resellers of resellers in Amsterdam that would totally ignore abuse reports and allow hosting anything. They were half a block from The Hague and an Interpol office. They would get raided a few times a year. I am still unsure how they managed to run for a long time unless they were a honeypot looking for specific targets.
Any product/service directly and publicly marketed to criminals is a honeypot (or will soon be). There is no reason for a real business (legal or illegal) to prefer criminal customers in good faith as all they bring is problems.
There are many agencies around the globe that set these up and continue to operate after siezing them to catch the low hanging fruit criminals. Its a lot easier/cheaper to lure criminals expose themselves directly than it is to actually investigate/track/hunt them down. Its pretty much the quantity over quality approach.
Links tend to disappear. It's always good to include a summary of what this link shows.
So I guess you are referring to the fact that Pronect Technology Ltd is located in Zagreb, Croatia?
> It is important to note, however, that while a location like Kosovo may provide added protection, it is not a guarantee against censorship or attacks. Hosting content that is controversial or politically sensitive always carries some level of risk, and it is important to carefully consider the potential consequences before hosting such content.
I've just spent a week in Kosovo for an international tech conference and it's pretty clear that the article is shit-posting. Kosovo might be small and somewhat 'wild west' but you'd be very silly to take any of that advice.
Even if you believee the claims, the EU - especially Germany - is heavily involved in economic development of the country. Kosovo is very keen to improve their EU integration. So, you might be able to side-step Kosovar authorities, but gain the attention of the EU and you're not going to be protected by incompetance or bribery of local law enforcement.
As an aside - it's a great place to visit. Friendly, safe, cheap (for now), good weather. Looking forward to returning one day.
Having spent some time there myself, I agree with this. The corruption is more than we expect in the US, but not on this level and getting better all the time.
There isn't an extreme level of corruption by any means described here. Getting tipped off to raids, warrants, inquiries, taps etc is pretty easy to achieve even in the United States. Even getting local authorities to run interference to give you some time is reasonably affordable.
Look at the corruption in cities like Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans. Kasim Reed's staff selling machine guns, Burr Ellis hosting parties from his private floor in jail. Sydney Dorsey having his deputies assassinate the rival sheriff. A 10 year school cheating scandal, the 2020 election, kickbacks galore at the world's busiest airport. That's just Atlanta, many major cities have similar or worse corruption issues and it's fairly simple to tap into. In many cases necessary if you want to do business in the city at all.
What tech conference was in Kosovo? I feel like most are in all of the normal destinations and would like to add a few that are in more interesting locales.
It's a yearly global conference series run by volunteers. There are also regional versions, e.g. FOSS4G NA will be in Baltimore this year (https://foss4gna.org/), Asia will be in Seoul (https://foss4g.asia/2023/) and Oceania will be Auckland (https://2023.foss4g-oceania.org/). It's a great conference if you're interested in Mapping / Geo tech.
Probably from this top comment on the TOR exit node fella, if you want more context about why this is being posted now and how it applies to HN more broadly
I'm curious about the thought process of people who use services like this. If the datacenter operators are being truthful, then posting mycrimes dot txt on the internet seems like a bad idea. Fundamentally, they're saying "we operate in a comparatively lawless area, and we're doing <x>, <y>, and <z>." But, all things being equal, I'd expect things like regional militias and organized crime to fill the vacuum of state power, and explicitly saying what you do seems like it opens you up to getting shaken down or worse.
On the other hand, they also have no real obligation to be honest about the service they're providing. If they're already publicly claiming to be doing crimes, then being dishonest about the security and safety of the services provided is a drop in the already-quite-full bucket. My guess is that unless they're extremely principled about their specific view of free speech, the risks inherent in the venture mean they don't believe this necessarily has, say, decades-long sustainability as a business model. If so, then maximizing near-term profit by cutting corners or abusing access to customer data is probably a very tempting option.
Looking at the angles, I have a hard time seeing who'd want to use a service like this.
I've used a similar site for DNS and some hosting.
The main reason was having to deal with CSAM and copyright reports, the more common registrars/providers would threaten to pull me if I didn't reply in 24 or 48 hours and eventually I would get kicked off.
I was hosting copyrighted content, I wasn't hosting CSAM but there was legal content involving minors but average provider doesn't care and will argue with you or say it violates their TOS. These shady hosts/registrars just don't care, sure they might vanish one day but if you have backup it's fine.
I used a shady domain registrar (.com) for fun. They had their legal contact in Ethiopia, didn't ask for anything other than an email address and would even accept cash money sent to them. All kinds of crypto currencies, too. I used Paypal and their annual invoices were shady looking too, always ending up in spam.
Yes, they just didn't care. Then one day they said I had to send them a copy of my passport to continue. Also if I wanted to cancel or transfer the main. I let the domain expire instead (got domain squatted but I managed to get it back a couple of years later).
I’d like to distribute training data. (I’m one of the authors of The Pile, which was recently knocked offline when The Eye stopped hosting it due to threats.)
I also have the entire books3 dataset — the original epub files, not text extractions — sitting around on a hard drive. Many people have wanted metadata or to reprocess the set for their own purposes. I’d like to release those, but distributing 190,000 epubs is a little… hard.
Sadly 50TB of traffic per month is almost nothing when it comes to disturbing 800GB datasets. I’d spend 150 euros a month for a solution, but it’d need to be heftier.
That is kinda India's domain though. Aided by their even lower wages and seniors being susceptible to phone calls, not digital comms. "Hello this is Microsoft calling, we need to fix a problem with your computer". There seems to be an upsurge in this crime lately.
Similar to Serbia India's government seems highly acceptant of these scammer callcenters. They seem to operate without any legal intervention. IMO the country should be hit with sanctions for it, that'll end it in no time.
If I would want to host an illegal content, I'd use boring provider and route everything via tor. Stable onion address and disposable web gateways which could be hosted everywhere as they don't carry any particular risks of seizure.
> Furthermore, the lack of recognition (or even existence at all) by many countries means that Kosovo is less susceptible to outside influence and pressure from both East and West, which can provide a safe haven for content that is regularly targeted by state actors and similar.
I would think the opposite is true -- being only partially recognized makes you very dependent on the countries countries that recognized you. If e.g. the US wants something done it is much easier to bully a country that enjoys their protection and is not 100% recognized.
"101 out of 193 (52.3%) United Nations member states, 22 out of 27 (81.5%) European Union member states, 27 out of 31 (87.1%) NATO member states, and 33 out of 57 (57.9%) Organisation of Islamic Cooperation member states have recognised Kosovo." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_K... (includes a map)
If this is legitimate, these people are idiots. If it's not legitimate it's a honeypot. Either way I'm sure stupid criminals will fall for it, so kudos
How's the protection from the proverbial balaclava wearing thugs applying a crowbar to your server? (Or more likely someone handing your host some cash to accidentally disappear your VPS?)
Readit News
Kosovo definitely is a corrupt country, but it doesn't mean you don't have to keep your criminal activities on the low. If you attract the attention of the western agencies, they will absolutely go after you. This isn't Russia, they're west-aligned and they don't want to annoy their western partners too much.
Also, this site doesn't even seem to be hosted in Kosovo: https://apps.db.ripe.net/db-web-ui/query?searchtext=192.71.1...
There are many agencies around the globe that set these up and continue to operate after siezing them to catch the low hanging fruit criminals. Its a lot easier/cheaper to lure criminals expose themselves directly than it is to actually investigate/track/hunt them down. Its pretty much the quantity over quality approach.
Deleted Comment
This smells like it was written by ChatGPT
Even if you believee the claims, the EU - especially Germany - is heavily involved in economic development of the country. Kosovo is very keen to improve their EU integration. So, you might be able to side-step Kosovar authorities, but gain the attention of the EU and you're not going to be protected by incompetance or bribery of local law enforcement.
As an aside - it's a great place to visit. Friendly, safe, cheap (for now), good weather. Looking forward to returning one day.
Look at the corruption in cities like Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans. Kasim Reed's staff selling machine guns, Burr Ellis hosting parties from his private floor in jail. Sydney Dorsey having his deputies assassinate the rival sheriff. A 10 year school cheating scandal, the 2020 election, kickbacks galore at the world's busiest airport. That's just Atlanta, many major cities have similar or worse corruption issues and it's fairly simple to tap into. In many cases necessary if you want to do business in the city at all.
It's a yearly global conference series run by volunteers. There are also regional versions, e.g. FOSS4G NA will be in Baltimore this year (https://foss4gna.org/), Asia will be in Seoul (https://foss4g.asia/2023/) and Oceania will be Auckland (https://2023.foss4g-oceania.org/). It's a great conference if you're interested in Mapping / Geo tech.
Many more others, am also proud to be early student (shortly) of: https://frontendmasters.com/teachers/james-halliday/ who visited: https://flossk.org/projects/prishtina-hackerspace/ and mesmerized everyone with his skills and knowledge.
Deleted Comment
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36837438
On the other hand, they also have no real obligation to be honest about the service they're providing. If they're already publicly claiming to be doing crimes, then being dishonest about the security and safety of the services provided is a drop in the already-quite-full bucket. My guess is that unless they're extremely principled about their specific view of free speech, the risks inherent in the venture mean they don't believe this necessarily has, say, decades-long sustainability as a business model. If so, then maximizing near-term profit by cutting corners or abusing access to customer data is probably a very tempting option.
Looking at the angles, I have a hard time seeing who'd want to use a service like this.
The main reason was having to deal with CSAM and copyright reports, the more common registrars/providers would threaten to pull me if I didn't reply in 24 or 48 hours and eventually I would get kicked off.
I was hosting copyrighted content, I wasn't hosting CSAM but there was legal content involving minors but average provider doesn't care and will argue with you or say it violates their TOS. These shady hosts/registrars just don't care, sure they might vanish one day but if you have backup it's fine.
Yes, they just didn't care. Then one day they said I had to send them a copy of my passport to continue. Also if I wanted to cancel or transfer the main. I let the domain expire instead (got domain squatted but I managed to get it back a couple of years later).
I also have the entire books3 dataset — the original epub files, not text extractions — sitting around on a hard drive. Many people have wanted metadata or to reprocess the set for their own purposes. I’d like to release those, but distributing 190,000 epubs is a little… hard.
Sadly 50TB of traffic per month is almost nothing when it comes to disturbing 800GB datasets. I’d spend 150 euros a month for a solution, but it’d need to be heftier.
Similar to Serbia India's government seems highly acceptant of these scammer callcenters. They seem to operate without any legal intervention. IMO the country should be hit with sanctions for it, that'll end it in no time.
If I would want to host an illegal content, I'd use boring provider and route everything via tor. Stable onion address and disposable web gateways which could be hosted everywhere as they don't carry any particular risks of seizure.
Deleted Comment
> Furthermore, the lack of recognition (or even existence at all) by many countries means that Kosovo is less susceptible to outside influence and pressure from both East and West, which can provide a safe haven for content that is regularly targeted by state actors and similar.
I would think the opposite is true -- being only partially recognized makes you very dependent on the countries countries that recognized you. If e.g. the US wants something done it is much easier to bully a country that enjoys their protection and is not 100% recognized.