Bulletproof host Stark Industries evades EU sanctions

129 todsacerdoti 40 9/11/2025, 5:42:56 PM krebsonsecurity.com ↗

Comments (40)

iammrpayments · 3h ago
It’s a little bit Ironic that they use the name of an American super hero
DFHippie · 3h ago
That Elon Musk fancies himself to be. Well, that's less ironic.
nickff · 45m ago
It is my understanding that Marvel Studios' Tony Stark was modeled after him, rather than the other way around. Additionally, he had a cameo in one of the Iron Man movies.
simsla · 42m ago
Elon was three years old when the first Iron Man comic book came out.

EDIT: and the movies are pretty faithful to the comic books.

dotnet00 · 20m ago
The movie personality of Tony Stark was supposedly inspired by Musk's persona (at least from before he began spending most of his time in a futile attempt to woo Trump)

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/28/robert-downey-j...

"In 2022, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus confirmed that Musk had partly inspired the screen version of the Marvel hero, as both men share tech prowess, arrogance and a short fuse. He told New York magazine that Stark was as if “Musk took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,” adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance.”"

tomjakubowski · 38m ago
His cameo in IM2 was part of the deal he made to let the producers use a SpaceX facility.
dabeeeenster · 3h ago
WTH is a “bulletproof host”? Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?
david_shaw · 3h ago
> WTH is a “bulletproof host”?

A "bulletproof" host or provider is the colloquial term for a business that will not reveal your identity, payment information, provide LEO access, respond to subpoenas, etc.

It's generally used by cyber-criminals as a "safe" vendor, though some privacy-minded individuals like this type of provider as well.

cptnapalm · 3h ago
My mind first jump to an old video of somebody shooting a Sun Microsystems machine and the bullets did not in fact penetrate the steel.
rrauenza · 2h ago
Are you thinking of HP or did they both do it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU

cptnapalm · 1h ago
I forgot about the HP one! I distinctly remember there was a Sun too; it was like a backyard shoot.
gnabgib · 3h ago
Ars covered it in 2013, it's common in security (Risky Business, OSInt, Krebs) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-t...
Rotdhizon · 39m ago
Imagine a rack of servers in some countries where global and even that country's law can't really touch them. "cyber gangs" and the like will use those servers as hosting for their malware and activities.
nickstinemates · 3h ago
It says so in the article. Isp's who ignore authorities and allow anything to happen on their networks.
dabeeeenster · 3h ago
Thanks for the replies. Should have RTFA I guess
lucb1e · 1h ago
> Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?

obligatory: https://xkcd.com/1053/ Happy ten thousand day!

Others already answered but while I'm chiming in anyway, I'm not in the hosting industry but IT security (for like ten years, say) and for me it's a very normal term. Maybe precisely because of that niche though; many of us are paranoid

hrdwdmrbl · 4h ago
Sometimes it feels like the internet is still the wild west.

The EU tries to rope off a single building with velvet ropes, a doorman, ID verification, facial scans, and cookie banners, while next door it's an illegal rave in an abandoned supermarket.

devjab · 3h ago
I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation. What websites should do is that they should assume you reject any tracking as their default, and then they can offer a site setting that you have to seek out, where you can agree to be tracked. What they are sort of allowed to do, is that they can prompt you with a banner, but it has to be a single no-click without requiring you to read much, but that is still not compliance. Anything more annoying is a legal violation.

The real issue is that there aren't a whole lot of consequences when it comes to tracking data. It's a legal violation, sure, but it's not a criminal violation. So it would be up to you to pursue it. In many countries you can't even file a civil lawsuit, but rather, you have to go through your national data protection agency. Which in reality likely means your complaint will be auto-rejected after five years because they need to clean up the queue.

As far as the malicious disobedience goes... well... it's probably because "all the other website do it", but you might as well just give people the option to go to a setting to turn it off. It's not like that would be any less of a legal violation than the banner.

IanCal · 2h ago
Sort of aside but it’s wild to me that people talk of ab testing all kinds of minor things and yet so many shops immediately cover up the item I’m viewing with a huge banner/full page annoyance about cookies.

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erulabs · 2h ago
If the majority of users use the system wrong, it's the system that's wrong, not the users.
jdlshore · 2h ago
That rubric only applies when the users aren’t actively and maliciously sabotaging the system, which privacy-subverting websites absolutely are. (And everyone else is cargo-cutting their behavior.)
chatmasta · 1h ago
To be fair, I’m sabotaging it from the other side with my ad-blocker.
kevin_thibedeau · 52m ago
Defending yourself from abuse is not an excuse for others to engage in abuse. I have no issue with passive 90's-style ads. I don't need to block them. I use my abuse-blocker to handle more concerning problems.
WesolyKubeczek · 2h ago
Note that the most annoying consent banners come from advertising conglomerates (IAB comes to mind). Well who would think they wouldn’t sabotage anything?
petcat · 37m ago
> I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation.

The EU's own government websites are littered with the obnoxious cookie banners [1].

It's an unbelievably thoughtless and misguided law that has unfortunately ruined the internet. I think a lot of people rightfully blame the EU for this nonsense.

https://european-union.europa.eu

rubiquity · 23m ago
If anything the internet has become more of the wild west and will continue to do so as the internet is incredibly useful for state actors.
giveita · 43m ago
The physical world is like that too!
yieldcrv · 2h ago
this is more common and easier than people think, and I think this conflict was necessary to exposure the hubris behind global superpowers

they think they're omnipotent but really don't control the world, rendering economic sanctions and service blacklisting to be null and moot

trhway · 4h ago
Sanctions?! What sanctions? They don't even hide, right in the heart of Western Europe:

https://www.swedbank-aktiellt.se/telegram/WOzsdcJG

"AMSTERDAM, April 10, 2025

MIRhosting, a leading provider of enterprise-grade colocation and IT infrastructure services in Europe, proudly announces the launch of two dedicated, fully equipped data rooms at its newest location within the NorthC data center in Nieuwegein. This strategic expansion strengthens MIRhosting's colocation capabilities, directly addressing the growing demand for reliable and scalable colocation solutions in the greater Amsterdam region...."