Posted on 07/22/2004 12:31:25 PM PDT by JohnathanRGalt
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Continuing to use a confusing maze of false addresses and telephone numbers to avoid detection, a web site operator who apparently wants to make people believe he's based in Seattle and California is helping Al Qaeda and other terror groups get their message of terror out to millions.
The Internet Service provider is HostingAnime. Spot checks find the company is hosting new terror sites daily.
One of the latest is www.hostinganime.com/seer/ – home to this shocking picture.
Another Hosting Anime site is www.hostinganime.com/haramin/index.htm, home to the terrorist Saudi Arabian Al Haramain Brigades. There a link is provided (http://k1mrm.notlong.com and http://k2mrm.notlong.com – also at www.abualbukhary.net) to access video interviews of the attackers who blew up the police building in Saudi Arabia on April 21 2004.
This threatening image is displayed at www.hostinganime.com/qaedoon/index.htm
Hosting Anime appears to run with impunity from at least one branch of the FBI. An agent from the Phoenix FBI recently told a reporter that the Internet Service provider was not suspected of being involved with terrorism, and that investigative efforts toward that end were going down the wrong road.
A few weeks ago the agent ominously said that it would not be a good idea for a reporter to look for additional information about the operators of Hosting Anime.
He added, "You could end up helping people you don't want to help. You may already have." The agent refused to clarify what he meant by the statement.
However, an agent from the Seattle FBI said the bureau would look into the situation.
According to its current Internet registration, the contact information for Hosting Anime is listed as 8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. in Westchester, CA 90045. However, the building manager for that address said that Hosting Anime is not located at this address.
That is also the same location as the one used by www.namecheap.com, an Internet name registration service operated by Richard Kirkendall. That service buys its ability to operate from the Bellevue, WA-based www.enom.com. An employee from that company asked that communications be directed to the abuse department of the organization.
Reached by telephone a few weeks ago, Kirkendall's mother Irma Hernandez said her son lives part of the year in France and could only be reached by e-mail, but she explained the location situation by saying that the Sepulveda address is a mail drop she rented for her son's business.
Hosting Anime's "Mike Smith" supposedly lives in Seattle Washington. However, a phone number listed for Smith was for Seattle's Wharfside Pointe Apartments. The apartment manager said she didn't know anyone called Mike Smith.
During the last few months, Smith has also provided other addresses and contact telephone numbers for his registrant site contact (which in addition to Hosting Anime include among others www.darkfiles.net and www.onefreehost.com). A call to one Seattle number listed was answered by an woman who said she knew nothing about terror and was a very peaceful citizen.
However, an individual speaking on condition of anonymity who called a reporter soon after may have shed some light on the puzzle. He said his teenage son, who has been in trouble before, may have been somehow involved as the telephone number given was for the boy's grandmother and the address given was for his (the father's) home.
The source said, "I'm shocked for both me and my mother. I don't know what's going on. I really don't have any idea but my son plays around with computers a lot."
Due to personal reasons, the individual said he was initially unable to contact his son to find out for sure whether or not he was responsible. However, he later called a reporter and said he had been told indirectly that his son was cooperating with the FBI.
When the father's apparent concern about his son was expressed to the Phoenix FBI agent, the same individual told a reporter that the father wasn't concerned at all. The agent refused to elaborate and a call to the individual who made the statement was not returned.
In addition to the threats of upcoming terrorism and increasing use of Hosting Anime by radical Islamic groups, two beheadings of innocent victims by Islamic militants have been shown on the free web site pages of www.hostinganime.com.
Citing free speech (and now backed up by a court victory in another case), the operators of Hosting Anime continue to make available at www.hostinganime.com/iraqnews1/index.html the gruesome beheading video and still pictures of 33-year-old South Korean translator Kim Sun-Il.
Hosting Anime also hosts a number of other terror related sites. They include: www.hostinganime.com/gim/GIMfaroq.htm, www.hostinganime.com/neda2/page/new.htm,
www.hostinganime.com/neda3/sout/index.htm and www.hostinganime.com/meshawir/aljhad.html
Pictures of engineer Paul Johnson after he was beheaded are still prominently displayed on www.hostinganime.com/neda3/sout/index.htm, and www.hostinganime.com/neda2/page/new.htm is a web site with the same design and graphics as an al Qaeda site formerly known as www.alneda.com.
Commenting on the company's hosting of these sites, a Hosting Anime company official commented on a company forum site; http://forums.hostinganime.com/viewtopic.php?t=176 In that forum, Hosting Anime was asked on June 18,
"Did you know your services are being used as the official web page for the group that beheaded the American in Saudi? I would hope your company is smart to remove this site from your database."
A Hosting Anime official initially thanked the individual for bringing fact that to his attention. However, when the site remained on line, another letter was written to Hosting Anime, (sic)
"This is ... pathetic. Delete it already. Block the freaking IP address. QUIT ALLOWING TERRORIST WEBSITES TO BE HOSTED ON YOUR SYSTEM FOR DAYS BEFORE YOU GET RID OF THEM. Block this IP, find all other ones, block them. You are American? Quit letting them spread their message unless you agree with what they do."
He received a shocking response (http://forums.hostinganime.com/viewtopic.php?t=176) from Hosting Anime.
"We will look into this manner when we have time, this is a free hosting company, and there are no profits being made, so that we can afford to sit and review all emails/abuse reports as this takes a large amount of time. Please give us time to get that done, in the mean time, please take the first amendment into consideration, free speech, just because you don't like the content of a site does that mean it should be shutdown?
"An email sent to me this morning I think is worth posting on the subject:
"‘Hey, screw those people that didn't like the site. They didn't have to go there to begin with, and whoever accused you of supporting terrorism has totally lost it. What about us who want to know why these people think the way they do and act the way they do ??? It's about communicating and I think it SUCKS that you cave to a few that would rather just throw a blanket over their head's and hope when they lift it off themselves, everything will be just fine. It makes me SICK !!'
"As stated, we will take a look into this site and see what can be done in good time."
In response to a further complaint, the Hosting Anime System Administrator wrote, (http://forums.hostinganime.com/viewtopic.php?t=176),
"Thank you for your additional comments on this matter, nothing can be done at this time, we will review the site and decide what is best.
"If you have looked at some of our users web pages, you will see that there are no banners/pop ups on our users pages, that means no income. If you don't want me to use that excuse, what excuse would you like to hear? It's either I lie to you or tell you the truth, I have told you the truth, if you don't accept that, feel free to imagine whatever you would like."
Hosting Anime appears to host its terror sites by renting space on the servers of the Houston based Everyone's Internet, which has hosted sites in the past for groups such as the Hamas.
Everyone's Internet did not return a number of e-mails seeking comment but did generate an automated response which read in part,
"We have received your report of possible abuse of our network resources. The current number of notifications that require investigations limits the number of personal responses from the staff to senders and this might be the only response you receive regarding your notification; however, we do investigate each report."
In addition, when asked recently if EV1 administration would respond to an e-mail seeking answers about the company's continued relationship with Hosting Anime, a receptionist said,
"If they're interested they will contact you. All we say is that they're unavailable and we can take a message."
Jeremy Reynalds
_______________________
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/reynalds/04/reynalds072204.htm
I presume the feds know all about this.
This is odd...
bump
Anyone who supports terrorist, terrorist groups or the propaganda of the terrorist should be considered terrorist themselves. Accidents do happen!
A mysterious internet service provider with apparent ties to al Qaeda continues to operate as a virtual mouthpiece for the terrorist organization by using an elaborate web of deception.
The latest site to appear on the Hosting Anime servers is www.hostinganime.com/sout19.
According to Middle East Online (www.middle-east-online.com/english/saudi/?id=10546), the site contains a message from Fares al-Zahrani, one of the most sought after terror suspects in Saudi Arabia.
In a message contained on the site, Zahrani rejected an offer to turn himself in.
"I never contemplated surrendering to any tyrant," Zahrani said in the message (whose authenticity could not be independently verified) attributed to him on www.hostinganime.com/sout19/index.htm.
Zahrani also denied he had initiated contacts with a Saudi cleric, Sheikh Safar al-Hawali, with a view to surrendering.
"This is a lie," he said, according to Middle East Online, calling the Saudi regime "an infidel and despotic state against which jihad (holy war) should be waged." Zahrani is on a list of 26 top terror suspects which has been cut down to 13 since it was issued by Saudi authorities last December, Middle East Online reported. Half of the militants on the list have either been killed in clashes with security forces or surrendered to authorities.
In addition to hosting messages from terrorists, Hosting Anime sites have been used to provide gruesome pictures of the beheadings of engineer Paul Johnson and South Korean translator Kim Sun-Il. Despite this, a special agent in the Phoenix FBI office said his agency's investigations have led him to conclude that Hosting Anime site operators are not involved in the murders in any way and that the agency is looking toward the Middle East.
When asked by a reporter why the owners of Hosting Anime are repeatedly going out of their way to provide a cluttered trail of false contact information, the agent refused to answer. He told a reporter that he really couldn't say anything other than that the reporter was going down the wrong trail by looking for additional information about the web site operators.
The agent added ominously, "You could end up helping people you don't want to help. You may already have." The agent refused to clarify what he meant by the statement.
The contact information given for Hosting Anime ranges from a mail drop box in Westchester California, to the telephone number for an apartment complex in Seattle, to another address and telephone number in Seattle. When a woman in Seattle whose number was listed as a contact for the site was called, she initially denied knowing anything about the situation. However, after talking to her, a reporter was initially contacted by an individual claiming to be her son. Speaking on condition of anonymity the individual said he was concerned that his teenage son, who had been in trouble before, may have somehow gotten mixed up with Hosting Anime. When that concern was expressed to the FBI, the same agent told a reporter that the father wasn't concerned at all. The agent refused to elaborate and a call to the individual who made the statement was not immediately returned.
Additional research on Hosting Anime (registered to "Mike Smith" of www.darkfiles.net) has revealed even more confusion on just who is behind the company. Hosting Anime tells its web site owners that the company is a partner with www.mysmallurl.com.
Hosting Anime writes, "They provide small URL's ... They currently have four domains to choose from."
One of those domains is www.vzeu.com. While www.mysmallurl.com registers to "Mike Smith" purportedly from Seattle and using a false address and telephone number, checking on the registration information for www.vzeu.com takes readers back to www.mysmallurl.com, this time with different registration information. This time the contact is given as "ChooChoo,"Matt Kewlies, 2412 Super Court, Yahooville, California 22401.
As Internet terror researcher Johnathan Galt pointed out in a recent e-mail, there is no 324 area code; there is no Yahooville California, and the zip code given is for Virginia.
An e-mail to Kewlies requesting comment was not immediately answered.
However, Galt said that Kewlies did leave some clues from his e mails (www.staindsouls.com/gbook/index.php?page=2,
http://members.lycos.co.uk/dewcurtain/gbook/index.php).
According to Galt, "(Kewlies') e-mail appears as the first post of a software used for posting comments on websites. ‘You have successfully installed fusion gbook!' I suspect he may be the programmer."
Galt added, "(Kewlies) AIM handle, amazing2eyedman, also gives a few hits. He was selling his domain http://www.myfreebb.com/ (in Feb. 2004) and has this email, webmaster@myfreebb.com. He gave his real name as ‘Matt A.'"
An e-mail by a reporter to webmaster@myfreebb.com was returned as undeliverable. Also registered to Kewlies is www.animanga.vzeu.com and www.sean.vzeu.com. "Sean's Page," which provides a link to Britain's Liverpool Daily Post and the Liverpool football team web site, gives a non working e-mail address for Sean (annfinnan@eircom.net). It also provides a link to a page hosted by Hosting Anime (www.hostinganime.com/david/donate.html) where readers are invited to send money to "Sean." The name and address provided for sending donations to "Sean" is David Bannon, Meeltenagh, Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland.
Hosting Anime's "Mike Smith" also hosts a number of other sites that include www.Anime200.com, www.BadAssgamers.com, and www.Giguphosting.com.
Jeremy Reynalds
_________________
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/reynalds/04/reynalds071104.htm
I've got a tool that let's me run "whois" queries on domains. Here's what I found. Oh, and this is, of course, for informational purposes only.
07/22/04 15:42:54 whois hostinganime.com
.com is a domain of USA & International Commercial
Searches for .com can be run at http://www.crsnic.net/
whois -h whois.crsnic.net hostinganime.com ...
Redirecting to ENOM, INC.
whois -h whois.enom.com hostinganime.com ...
Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact: support@NameCheap.com
Visit: http://www.namecheap.com/
Domain name: hostinganime.com
Registrant Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (88gljnn38a.protect@whoisguard.com)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Administrative Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (88gljnn38a.protect@whoisguard.com)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Technical Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (88gljnn38a.protect@whoisguard.com)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Billing Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected (88gljnn38a.protect@whoisguard.com)
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Status: Locked
Name Servers:
NS1.ANONCITIES.COM
NS2.ANONCITIES.COM
Creation date: 22 Mar 2003 00:00:00
Expiration date: 22 Mar 2005 00:00:00
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Here you go cowboy
http://www.whois.sc/hostinganime.com
For what it's worth I also sent this posting to SITE Institute.
Ping for later.
Are yousure that the feds aren't completely plugged into these sites so they can gather web, mail, and IP addresses for those who sympathyze with the cause? Leaving these sites alone to operate under the guise of "free speech" is probably just a ruse so the feds can keep tabs on who uses the site. They can't come out and say this though, so they give the types of answers you've received. shutting these sites down on US servers could well hamper the hunt for terrorists and their sympathizers.
An excellent link Valin!
Johnathan,
Check around with your contacts to see if anyone has the "Silver Membership" to Whois.sc. You will see in the link that they provide a Whois history - so this site may be registered today using Namecheap's WhoisGuard anonymous service, but in the past it wasn't. From what I see, Whois.sc has 53 previous whois records for this site and that could provide some valuable clues about the identity of the owner.
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