[Community-Discuss] Small Progress

[Arnaud AMELINA]

+1 @Noah

Le sam. 2 janv. 2021 à 10:09, Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> a écrit :


> 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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