[Community-Discuss] Small Progress

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

I am pleased to inform you all that there has been at least some minimal
progress with respect to AFRINIC wrestling back control of many or most
of the legacy IPv4 blocks that were effectively stolen from their
rightful owners by Mr. Cohen, Mr. Uerlings, and others.

Quietly, and without any public fanfare, it appears that AFRINIC staff,
since around December 19th, have been adding annotations to the WHOIS
records of many of these stolen blocks to indicate AFRINIC's recognition
that these blocks were in fact stolen.

For example, the WHOIS record for the 196.16.0.0/14 block which was stolen
from the South African national government's in-house IT arm... formerly
called "Infoplan" and long ago renamed to "SITA"... now contains the
following annotations:

remarks:        ============REMARK===================
remarks:        The custodianship of this IP prefix is presently
remarks:        deemed to be in dispute. Consequently,
remarks:        no change request pertaining to this particular
remarks:        prefix will be entertained by AFRINIC until the
remarks:        issue is finally resolved between the disputants
remarks:        themselves or by a competent authority.
remarks:        Further, whilst the current holder of the said prefix
remarks:        continues to hold same, AFRINIC shall bear no
remarks:        responsibility whatsoever in relation thereto and
remarks:        disputants are encouraged to resolve the said
remarks:        dispute expeditiously.
remarks:        ============REMARK====================

The AFRINIC WHOIS history of this block is shown here:

https://pastebin.com/raw/m0LVuppe

As anyone can clearly see, the block was originally assigned to "Infoplan"
in South Africa, even in the AFRINIC records which, in the case of this
specific block, have been partially "disappeared" via a process that
AFRINIC has yet to explain.

Additional records relating to this same block, and which go back even
further in time... all the way back to January 28, 1994...  are readily
available from ARIN's "WhoWas" historical data service.  These even
earlier historical records also confirm 100% that this block was formally
assigned to Infoplan (now named SITA) in January, 1994.

As anyone can also see from the AFRINIC historical records for this block,
the contact mailing address for this block was changed, on or about
2015-01-23, to be an address in the Seychelles Islands.  So you have to
ask yourself:  Why would an entity that is part of the South African
national government suddely relocate itself to the Seychelles Islands?

Obviously, it wouldn't.  That is nonsensical on the face of it.  So what
really happened here?

There are only two plausible possibilities:  Either (a) the block was simply
stolen, by messers Cohen, Uerlings, and Byaruhanga, via some clever and
illicit manipluation of the relevant AFRINIC WHOIS records, or else (b)
someone within the South African government received some payment in
exchange for the legitimate rights to this block... either with or without
the knowledge and consent of the South African government itself.

Personally, I find the second possibility, (b), to be implausible, not
because I believe that South African government officials are universally
immune to a little private bribery, but only because I have personally
spoken to a number of the other parties and entities that have also and
likewise had their legacy AFRINIC IPv4 address blocks stolen out from
under them, for example, the South African commercial metals company known
as Columbus Stainless (160.115.0.0/16), and also to managers and technical
people associated with South Africa's state-owned oil company, Sasol,
which also had its 155.237.0.0/16 block "liberated" from their control,
temporarily at least, in some still-mysterious way.

These are just two examples of the several AFRINIC legacy block holders
that have had their stuff stolen, and that I have personally spoken to
on multiple occasions.  IN ALL CASES, when I was able to make contact
with the real and legitimate legacy block owners those legitimate owners
universally expressed astonishment when I informed them that they were
no longer in control of their own assigned IP address assets.  Since my
initial contacts with these various victim organizations, several of them,
including the two mentioned above, as well as the City of Cape Town and
others, have moved swiftly to regain control of what was stolen from them.

Were insiders at literally ALL of these commercial companies and government-
owned organizations bribed to give up company assets to messers Cohen and
Uerlings?  I don't think so.  That notion really stretches the bounds of
credibility.

That leaves us with possibility (a) which is just that -somehow- the WHOIS
records were illicitly manipulated in some manner, by some party, so as
to provide effective control of the blocks to messers Cohen and Uerlings,
and also to Mr. Abizeid and Mr. Mehta.

Nonetheless, Mr. Cohen has gone to court, ostensibly to reclaim his rights
with respect to more than 20 different large AFRINIC legacy blocks, all /16
or larger, which he claims to have legitimately paid for.

An honest man has nothing to hide, and Mr. Cohen could clear this all up
very easily by just showing us all copies of the checks he claims to have
written in order to purchase all of these 20 or so AFRINIC legacy blocks.

So far he seems entirely reluctant to do that.  It doesn't take a genius
to figure out why.  If he did show us the checks, this entire ludicrous
and convoluted theft scheme would come crashing down around him, and he
knows it.  (He may have written those checks to his cohort in crime, Mr.
Uerlings or to one of Mr. Uerlings shell companies, or he may have written
the checks to Ernest, or to one of Ernest's shell companies, or he may
even have written the checks to some other and different crooked high-level
AFRINIC insider who held an even more senior position than Ernest, back in
the 201-2015 time frame, but he most certainly DID NOT write those checks
to any of the actual and legitimate legacy blocks owners.)

Instead of just showing us his payment checks, or even the purchase reciepts
for the IP address assets that he claims to have legitimately "bought",
Mr. Cohen has instead tried repeatedly and in every way he can think of
to simply browbeat, harass, and intimidate AFRINIC into submission.  His
delusional rantings here got him banned, so now he has invented multiple
sock puppet email accounts to circumvent that ban so that he can continue
his delusional and fact-free public ranting.... as if anybody is at all
likely to believe anything that either he or his multiple sock puppets
might say at this point.

Unfortunately for Mr. Cohen, none of his rather silly attemps to intimidate
AFRINIC are working, and none of them will work, because there are just too
many actual and independently verifiable facts on the table at this point.
But Mr. Cohen has several million reasons ($$$) to hope against hope that
he can somehow still keep his stolen stuff, so he is motivated to keep on
trying, even though literally all of the facts are against him.  This
pitiful public spectacle is sad to watch, but like our Mr. Trump here in
the U.S., Mr. Cohen is in denial, and is simply having trouble emotionally
processing the fact that he has already lost.


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  I suppose that whoever is administering the AFRINIC mailing lists
could be doing a somewhat better job of filtering out posting from Cohen's
various sock puppet free email accounts, but I personally don't mind if
they don't.  Every time he posts to the mailing lists using one of his
sock puppet identities he simply adds to the already abundant evidence
that he thinks the rules don't apply to him, and he also adds to the
equally abundant evidence that he's not an entirely well man.