International hub of fraud and misinformation

[webecedarian]

Some of the Web?s Sketchiest Sites Share an Address in Iceland
Kalkofnsvegur 2 in Reykjavik, Iceland, is the registered address for Withheld for Privacy, a company that allows operators of online domains to shield their identities
By Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu


The modern office building near the harbor in Iceland?s capital, Reykjavik, is best known as the home of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which displays 320 specimens of mammal penises. To those who track cyber mischief, however, the building also has a reputation as a virtual offshore haven for some of the world?s worst perpetrators of identity theft, ransomware, disinformation, fraud and other wrongdoing.

That?s because the museum?s street address, Kalkofnsvegur 2, is also the registered address for Withheld for Privacy, a company that is part of a booming and largely unregulated industry in Iceland and elsewhere that allows people who operate online domains to shield their identities... Withheld for Privacy and other so-called proxy services have turned Iceland into a global hub for illicit activity far out of proportion to the country?s size.

The company ? created in 2021 by Namecheap, one of the world?s largest providers of websites ? has effectively shielded tens of thousands of sketchy internet sites. Even local authorities said they had tried and failed to reach the company?s representatives when problems had arisen...

The internet is replete with similar sites trying to trick or bilk credulous users, and proxy services, when abused, make it even more difficult to catch or even identify perpetrators.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/b...ity-theft.html

https://dnyuz.com/2024/10/09/some-of...ss-in-iceland/

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech...ess-in-iceland

[hadaso]

That's a service that is included with all domain registrations in Namecheap: Instead of having your contact details (street address, phone, email address) on the whois registry, you have the details of "Witheld for Privacy", and they are supposed to forward any email to you domain contact (perhaps after filtering spam and fraud. Practically all email sent to whois contact addresses is spam trying to sell various services to domain owners). Other registrars offer similar services. And since it's the default option probably most domain owners use them, and most of them are "sketchy internet sites". I know I am not one...

[Grhm]

Is "bilk" a real word? If so, it's new to me.

[somdcomputerguy]

Originally Posted by Grhm

Is "bilk" a real word? If so, it's new to me.

Yep it is.

• bilk definition at DuckDuckGo - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=palemoon&q...inition&ia=web

I find, and have found for quite a while now too, this site A.Word.A.Day Home Page : Word of the day, vocabulary, wordpower, words ... - https://wordsmith.org/awad/ to be 'really neat'. I get a newsletter from there.
- Bruce

[SideshowBob]

I have heard it before, but I think it's more common in the US than in Britain. It only just occurred to me that it must be where the name of Sergeant Bilko came from.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by SideshowBob

I have heard it before, but I think it's more common in the US than in Britain. It only just occurred to me that it must be where the name of Sergeant Bilko came from.

The character Sergeant Bilko from the Phil Silvers Show (1950’s television series) and a movie was supposedly created based on the name of baseball player Steve Bilko. Phil Slvers was a big fan of baseball. But, of course, it also also reminded viewers of bilk (to deceive). The name Bilko is an anglicized form of family names from Eastern Europe.

Bill

[mister]

Do you have URLs of these sites? Are these worse than the Dark Web?More difficult to trace and shut down?