[Community-Discuss] Small Progress

[Noah]

Ronald,

Don't mind the sock puppets and trolls, like my good friend Nishal
indicated after all its often hard to dispute facts because fact are facts.

Noah
Your apparent sidekick :-)

On Fri, 1 Jan 2021, 04:57 Ronald F. Guilmette, <rfg at tristatelogic.com>
wrote:


> 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.

>

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