July 26th 2023

EFF moves to quash subpoena seeking web host's identity

In what the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) are calling a victory for online expression, a subpoena aimed at revealing the identity of an anonymous person hosting a website was quashed by a U.S. District Court judge. After a New Jersey man was fired from his job once an anti-fascist Twitter account suggested he was involved with a white supremacist organization, the Twitter account was targeted by him and others who responded by suing everyone they claimed were connected to the doxxing, including antifascist activist organization Torch Antifa. Although the claims were dismissed, he issued a subpoena to Cloudflare seeking the identity of a web host whose only relation to the case was that they had previously hosted Torch Antifa’s website. WHT has had threads in the past asking who hosts this or that site, how to get Cloudflare or other proxies to reveal the location and host of sites behind those proxies, or simply asking for advice on how to sue or take down sites. The full article referenced in this thread makes for an interesting read. Have you ever wanted to know, or been asked for, the host of a site? How did you handle it?

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Minimizing IPv4 cost for VPS hosting

As IPv4s become increasingly more scarce, and with prices now hitting $2 to $3 per IP, HyperVMart is wondering what cheaper options there might be out there for sourcing IPs for VPS hosting. Is IPv6 an option yet, or has it still not been adopted sufficiently to become viable? Whilst VPS providers at the higher end of price ranges may be better able to absorb small increases in IP costs, budget providers still need to make money selling VPSs and their margins are too small to absorb the rising IP cost per VPS user. What are the risks involved in leasing IP blocks, and would it make more sense to buy blocks (like those advertised on WHT) and have your datacenter announce them for you? Share your experiences in the thread.

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News from around the hosting industry

Our Industry News section is the place to find current headlines from around the world of hosting and infrastructure, but other general interest threads pop up in other sections of the forum, especially The Lounge. Here we we highlight just some of the interesting news items from around the forum:

• AMD Zero Day Speculative Vulnerability - Zenbleed Zen 2 CVE-2023-20593 - It turns out that with precise scheduling, you can cause some processors to recover from a mispredicted vzeroupper incorrectly! This technique is CVE-2023-20593 and it works on all Zen 2 class processors, which includes at least the products listed in this thread. To get the bug to work first of all you need to trigger something called the XMM Register Merge Optimization2, followed by a register rename and a mispredicted vzeroupper. This all has to happen within a precise window to work.
• Spamhaus says cheap domains are fueling cybercrime - This quarter Spamhaus domain experts observed 17 million new domains. The IP and domain reputation firm discovered in its quarterly Q2 Domain Reputation report that every gTLD increase or new entry in the Spamhaus Top 20 domain listings can be purchased for under $5 USD. It states that cheap gTLDs are fueling cybercrime and calls for registries and registrars to tighten up policies and processes to prevent this abuse.
• Edged Energy to develop Kansas City data center - Construction will soon begin on an 18MW waterless-cooled facility for data center firm Edged Energy and local utility Evergy is being developed by engineering and construction firm Burns & McDonnell. The project should be completed by June of next year. Edged Energy is part of Endeavour, a relatively new company that teamed up with a real estate firm on data centers across Spain and Portugal and is planning data centers in Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix.
• AWS eyeing former Ford engine plant in the UK - Amazon Web Services is in negotiations to acquire the former Ford engine plant in Bridgend, Wales, UK. While a deal has yet to be agreed on, it is understood that the site's existing electricity connection to the National Grid, with data centers requiring secure and significant energy sources, has made it an attractive proposition as part of Amazon's strategy of ramping up its capacity in the UK. Ford ceased engine production at the plant, which extends to 1.7 million sq ft and covers more than 158 acres, in 2020.

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