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Quoted: Has ARFCOM considered launching a TOR mirror site? Or how about moving GD to TOR-only, and Post a link to it from the main clearnet site? Just an idea... I was just thinking about this. I think the main site should remain predominantly clear-net facing, with the normal front and back (side?) doors. However, in the case of DNS and ISP services outright blocking any request to the normal clear-net facing parts of the site, having an onion site address as a backdoor may allow a "skeleton crew" to keep the lights on and discussion going in critical moments. Would probably be a good idea for that page to direct to a physically discrete server backup that may or may not interface with the clear-net facing servers via non-traditional means to obfuscate the onion service server's connection with the clear-net site. |
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Wow, can't talk political talk anywhere any longer. Talk about (pun) stomping on 1A. What violence or incitement of violence is there on arfcom? I'm just not seeing it. But to be honest, if the "authority" above the content folks are controlling the content, then it's time to leave the commi platform, yes? There are many others who will accept your $$, etc. |
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Quoted: But violence posted on a website will get it shut down. There is such a thing as self control and self preservation. Get your point across without threats! Simple right? If this website gets shutdown it is looking like GAB.com is our Rally Point! What is AR15.com doing to become its own entity without fear of being shutdown? Can we partner with a freedom loving company to host us? |
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Quoted: Water under the bridge at this point, and you do have bigger fish to fry currently. Thanks for finally owning up to your failure. AFAIK, you never publicly acknowledged this before. That event is one reason I stopped buying memberships... There are others. If you decide to lock some of us long term members who are choosing not to buy memberships out of important discussions, that is your call. But it smacks of panic and defeatism to me. And adds to that list. I would focus on severing relationships with entities that hate "us"... and bolstering your ability to keep the signal going when there are more attacks from big business and, inevitability, government entities, rather than stifle information flow in the hopes they leave you alone for one more day. The failure discussion many not have been in a public thread or in a different location. As I mentioned, I would love to have a built in real time chat that we could tie into security and the upcoming vetting security in order to allow a more "secure" (I hate typing that word when it comes to digital) channels for discussion. We failed and did not have time to build what I wanted. It's tabled but not dead. Would be awesome to find or create something, but it's not a high priority item right now. |
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Quoted: So far ZERO. Let's keep it that way. Quoted: Quoted: I think the better question for the OP is how many warrants or subpoenas has ARF received for member details related to posts in threads discussing the events of or preparation for what happened in DC on 1/6/2021? So far ZERO. Let's keep it that way. Do we need a warrant canary?   ETA Already beat several times |
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Quoted: I was just thinking about this. I think the main site should remain predominantly clear-net facing, with the normal front and back (side?) doors. However, in the case of DNS and ISP services outright blocking any request to the normal clear-net facing parts of the site, having an onion site address as a backdoor may allow a "skeleton crew" to keep the lights on and discussion going in critical moments. Would probably be a good idea for that page to direct to a physically discrete server backup that may or may not interface with the clear-net facing servers via non-traditional means to obfuscate the onion service server's connection with the clear-net site. This is something discussed previously and in our plans. Not part of this type of restore, but to come after. We also have to start looking at alternatives to the forum structure. Something new, fast, and portable. Lots of ideas, little time! |
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Quoted: Democrats choose sides...why shouldn't we? Vetting a member could include name and zipcode for party affiliation status for staff to approve or deny...could weed out a good percentage! Fingerprint submission and a 4473 for "worthiness" 1st, then a visit by two suit folks just to make sure. Really? Now we are accepting the destruction of 1A? Sad. Trump supporting the rid of net-neutrality was a BIG mistake btw. That + sec230 = demise of any digital stuff the commi's don't want anyone to see. It's true commi is you just look at what's happening. Sorry, gotta call a pig a pig, and commi commi, etc. |
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Quoted: So how much would it cost for a group of investors to start up a conservative-focused web hosting service? Asking as a potential investor. I owned an ISP that covered about 1/3rd of WV in the late 90s, a professional systems admin until the 2010s. Now I just run hosted sites for my work. So, I'm a little out of touch. The biggest ways to get independence are colocation, where you place a server or blade in a server farm, and then pay for the space and the bandwidth. That can be cheap as a few thousand dollars per month. You can do that in a country that the US can't touch. But, it's out of your hands. Arf could simply run its own internal datacenter. They would need a physical location with power, power backup, access to trunk fiber, a rack, and the processor and storage capacity to run the front end and back end. There are guys on here that can probably build one in their sleep. I'm going to spitball one; Get a high speed fiber backhaul: $1,500mo Lets say they keep it modest, run an HP Proliant, some high speed drives, and license the OS/SQL/ETC, maybe $25K. Routing, rack, firewall, etc, $10K Power backup with generator, $15K AC and fire suppression, $10K Pay someone to set it all up in an existing building that you have hardened up; $100K would probably get you going. But, one warrant and that is GONE. |
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Quoted: I enjoy your little posts which border on insult and humor, but you live in the blue state of Washington. Home of CHOP! Now, did you go defend those businesses and people who were scared shitless in their homes? No? Why not? I mean you would stand up to oppression right? Maybe you think they deserved it or it was too far a drive. The point is you had a chance to fix something and stand up to the enemy and made a decision not to. Maybe there's more to it than that, but we all are victims of our own situations. I've tried to be honest here at least and share what I can. I dedicated my day to this thread, even while exhausted. If you can't respect that enough to read the post and be constructive, then so be it. Carry on with the snide remarks. Quoted: Quoted: Might as well change the site to DU15.com I enjoy your little posts which border on insult and humor, but you live in the blue state of Washington. Home of CHOP! Now, did you go defend those businesses and people who were scared shitless in their homes? No? Why not? I mean you would stand up to oppression right? Maybe you think they deserved it or it was too far a drive. The point is you had a chance to fix something and stand up to the enemy and made a decision not to. Maybe there's more to it than that, but we all are victims of our own situations. I've tried to be honest here at least and share what I can. I dedicated my day to this thread, even while exhausted. If you can't respect that enough to read the post and be constructive, then so be it. Carry on with the snide remarks. I do, and understand your obligations. I can't believe people aren't being reasonable about this.  |
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Quoted: So far ZERO. Let's keep it that way. Quoted: Quoted: I think the better question for the OP is how many warrants or subpoenas has ARF received for member details related to posts in threads discussing the events of or preparation for what happened in DC on 1/6/2021? So far ZERO. Let's keep it that way. Give it time. I said this yesterday right after Trump was banned and it's even truer now than it was then: Exactly. If the Feds end up tracing the people who entered the Capitol back to here they will subpoena their PMs and look through a lot of GD threads. If any organizing was done here then you can guarantee AWS will be tipped off and ARFCOM will have a limited window to find a new host (if they're even given a window). The bear has been poked and what we're seeing is just the beginning. I think you already know this, goatboy. Seemingly that's why this policy change was made. The subpoenas and warrants are coming. It's a matter of when not if. |
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Quoted: On the list with no ETA. Quoted: Quoted: We also need a way to pay for memberships outside of credit card processors. The left will just make it so we can't use a Visa card to pay. There has to be a cryptocurrency payment option--not just for AR15.com, but for the entire firearms community. It won't be long before Visa and Mastercard refuse to allow their products to be used at gun shops. On the list with no ETA. We need to organize against this behavior. I have money nor time to protest, but I'm going to have to make it. I have two toddlers and I don't want them to have to deal with shit like this. |
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Quoted: Of course, And this site is capitulating. You think they are going to stop? You capitulate to one demand, another follows. I, personally, don't see this as the forum capitulating, but instead trying to cover our asses for letting our personal "opsec" go to hell ever the last year or two. Instead of things that should be discussed securely, people are doing it in the clear, and that is harmful to our side, and puts a bunch of us in the crosshairs during the current witch-hunt. People here are fucking up in public, and it has to stop, not for censorship, but for protection. "They" are going to shut this place down. Soon. Period. Full stop. UNLESS, we can hold them at bay long enough to move it to a safe place. Even then, we have get better at security. We have made ourselves too vulnerable. We need a SCIF, not a sieve. |
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Quoted: But violence posted on a website will get it shut down. There is such a thing as self control and self preservation. Get your point across without threats! Simple right? Quoted: Quoted: Good job being fucking capitulators. Other American citizens are absolutely my enemy now. There are two opposite ideologies at odds here. There is no middle ground, no compromise. Either their side is in power in the end or ours. You don't back down when they try to punk you out. You stand tall and kick their fucking teeth in. I enlisted to fight Islam and I'll do whatever I have to here at home to fight authoritarianism/communism. Violence founded this nation. Violence will save it. But violence posted on a website will get it shut down. There is such a thing as self control and self preservation. Get your point across without threats! Simple right? Yes, we'll hide in the shadows. They'll never know we're jews then. |
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Quoted: So here's the rub. Even hosts are subject to the city's trunk. So if the telcom who owns the lines wants you gone, the whole hosting company can be shut down. It's good to have a plan, but it's better to have 5 or 6 plans. We are at phase 3 because phase 2 is eliminated in this fiasco. We also need to consult and balance things out and may skip 3 and go to phase 4. If we find a host is a risk, we can't just hope for the best. It's the same for all services. I don't think folks understand the nuances of the cluster we are in as conservatives. Quoted: Quoted: I would strongly urge moving away from AWS as an unconditional top priority though, not a contingency plan. This is only going to get worse from here, and they'll find increasingly flimsy excuses to pick off sites one by one. They'll tighten the vice gradually to divide and conquer sites against each other and create bad blood as people, organizations, and communities throw each other under the bus. "We're not terrorists, unlike ar15.com!" If I were you I'd get in contact with admins of other conservative sites and plan together about how to address hosting switches. The reason is, if you can't find a suitable host guaranteed to have your back long-term, your combined resources could create one. Eventually hosts won't be safe either, because ISP's will start shutting down accounts. We're going to either need our own ISP's and payment processors, or novel distributed forum hosting (a Freenet-like thing maybe), or a form of hosting that prevents ISP's from even knowing what sites a provider hosts. One thing at a time though. So here's the rub. Even hosts are subject to the city's trunk. So if the telcom who owns the lines wants you gone, the whole hosting company can be shut down. It's good to have a plan, but it's better to have 5 or 6 plans. We are at phase 3 because phase 2 is eliminated in this fiasco. We also need to consult and balance things out and may skip 3 and go to phase 4. If we find a host is a risk, we can't just hope for the best. It's the same for all services. I don't think folks understand the nuances of the cluster we are in as conservatives. Nuances no, but effectively, the whole bloody system (government, schools, hollywood, all of silicon valley, lots of "churches" and on and on) believes lies about us and hates us. |
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Quoted: is it possible to request those web archive services remove what they've copied from arf too? I've seen some example of that with the wayback machine. if so would be good to put those requests in. the data will exist somewhere, but will make it harder for randos to search for doxing activity. Quoted: Quoted: @GoatBoy Would it be possible to make "https://www.ar15.com/archive/" members only. When not behind the pay wall, it is archived by Google, Bing, and also Wayback Machine style systems. A significant amount of minable data is located there, and as such, can it be at least hidden behind the member's only security? It may also be prudent to have all non-tech topics that haven't had a reply in the last 6-12 months deleted. (As well as any stored media and photos expire after 6-12 months.) Also, importantly, the EE should probably have a 30 or 60 day time limit and then be deleted. There are numerous "Ill take it" posts in there that leave a paper trail on private transactions. I also believe this should be members only to prevent search and archival that can be used against people. Lastly, it may be prudent to push some sensitive sub forums to members with a certain post count and years active requirement. $24 get's you a lot more research ability, but having to wait 5 years and have 5,000 posts, should make that barrier much harder for casual doxxers to access. of course, deleting expired content is very helpful. Anyone that has archived the site so far will have the data. But taking these small measures will protect us from a large number of potential problems from the masses at large, and people looking to "turn in their neighbor". is it possible to request those web archive services remove what they've copied from arf too? I've seen some example of that with the wayback machine. if so would be good to put those requests in. the data will exist somewhere, but will make it harder for randos to search for doxing activity. Several ways. You can use some robots.txt code to have it removed or avoided by some places. Since Arfcom owns the logo and copyrighted content, a DMCA should take it down on any site that has archived this site. If we had a volunteer group to search for places hosting copies of the forum data, and send out DMCAs and follow up, we could knock all of it out in a matter of weeks or months. |
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Quoted: The failure discussion many not have been in a public thread or in a different location. As I mentioned, I would love to have a built in real time chat that we could tie into security and the upcoming vetting security in order to allow a more "secure" (I hate typing that word when it comes to digital) channels for discussion. We failed and did not have time to build what I wanted. It's tabled but not dead. Would be awesome to find or create something, but it's not a high priority item right now. Alternate comms can be a good thing. IRC isn't secure. But at this point, I think you can count on just about everything not being secure. |
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Quoted: This is something discussed previously and in our plans. Not part of this type of restore, but to come after. We also have to start looking at alternatives to the forum structure. Something new, fast, and portable. Lots of ideas, little time! Federated network of ActivityPub [1] servers ; I recommend Pleroma [2] which is written in Elixir , very small, fast light, self contained (can run on RPi) unlike Mastodon -- you could use with one of many ActivityPub existing frontends, or write custom JS SPA frontend to support forum structure. [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub [2] https://pleroma.social/ |
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Quoted: Several ways. You can use some robots.txt code to have it removed or avoided by some places. Since Arfcom owns the logo and copyrighted content, a DMCA should take it down on any site that has archived this site. If we had a volunteer group to search for places hosting copies of the forum data, and send out DMCAs and follow up, we could knock all of it out in a matter of weeks or months. Yes, if the company itself authorize it, we could get archives purged via DMCA. |
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Quoted: Several ways. You can use some robots.txt code to have it removed or avoided by some places. Since Arfcom owns the logo and copyrighted content, a DMCA should take it down on any site that has archived this site. If we had a volunteer group to search for places hosting copies of the forum data, and send out DMCAs and follow up, we could knock all of it out in a matter of weeks or months. We may need to go this route. 
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Quoted: Yes, we'll hide in the shadows. They'll never know we're jews then. Anne Frank hid and lived for two years, and then was caught and died in a camp. Lieutenant Albert Rosenberg saw what was happening and left Nazi Germany in 37 for the US. He came back with the US Army and helped defeat the Nazis. (As did more than 2,000 others) When it's clear that you are in immanent danger, you have to get ahead of things and make a strategy if you want to be victorious. |
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Quoted: If opsec is actually a concern - allow members to purge their account history, or self-delete posts - AND CHANGE USERNAMES. Absolutely this. Paid members should have 5 selectable options of self-purge; all requested to and approved by admin before taking effect. 1) Remove all external url tags ever posted by the user (delete the url hotlink and the hotlinked text within posts) 2) Remove all external img tags to ever posted by the user (delete the hotlinked image within posts) 3) Remove all internal ARFcom hosted images ever uploaded by the user... not just from the post, but the actual image file from the server. 4) User Removed from system: All posts made by a user and any @ tags with their username are changed to "USER_REMOVED" - this keeps the content of posts so threads don't become disjointed when someone self-purges but also lets someone "walk away" anonymously 5) Total Nuke. Every post and every @ and every mention of someone's name in others' posts (if it's a unique moniker) are disappeared - like they never existed. of course, all this doesn't mean shit so long as there are web archives of AR15.com |
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Quoted: As a frequent user of the old IRC room, having it suddenly go *poof* without warning, was pretty infuriating. There was little discussion about it, after a short time of frustrated posts from us users. I made some very good friends there. Folks figured out alternates. I understand it wasn't a priority, and got back burnered. But, it was also a place were people went when arfcom went down, to see what was going on. Sometimes to the frustration and detriment of those of us who "moderated" the room. Alternate comms can be a good thing. IRC isn't secure. But at this point, I think you can count on just about everything not being secure. The big issue then was it sort of went BOOM on our end too. We didnt have a replacement in place and that software was REAL old. (I want to say the company didnt even exist anymore.) It was a shitty spot all around.
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Quoted: Federated network of ActivityPub [1] servers ; I recommend Pleroma [2] which is written in Elixir , very small, fast light, self contained (can run on RPi) unlike Mastodon -- you could use with one of many ActivityPub existing frontends, or write custom JS SPA frontend to support forum structure. [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub [2] https://pleroma.social/ We should chat sometime. I'll do research into all of this, cause it's totally new to me. 
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Quoted: No offense GB, but a bronze membership is cheap and a small price to pay have full access. I wouldn’t mind seeing a forum for long time or vetted members to post in. Team allows access by just buying a membership. Now how to figure out who’s legit.......that might be easier said than done. 100% lets do this somehow. Maybe we can send some form of ID to prove we are who we say we are? |
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Quoted: Ok I am caught up! Man that's a long day. Only 11pm central on a Saturday. F'ing wonderful day. Thank you for working so hard to keep ARFCOM up and running. I know not everyone appreciates it and understands that hard choices had to be made. Letting ARFCOM go dark would mean victory for the left. I hope you are able to find new hosting and get away from Amazon as quickly as possible. Hopefully some of the changes can be dialed back when a better host is found. Please make sure to register some alternate domain names through different registrars as well in case GoDaddy or Verisign try to nuke the domain. We're under attack from all directions. |
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Quoted: I understand what Goatboy is trying to do, but I would like to point out two things; At the top of the hometown forums, is the American Pioneer corps, and there is a huge thread floating on one of the pages of General Discussion where members were discussing how to get to the Capitol on the 6th, ride sharing, hotels, etc. Everyone posting in that thread, or that forum, has a target on their back, and none of it is private or for Team members only. While I am commenting, I would like to reiterate that deleting posts is a fool's errand, as Google sweeps the site several times a day and archives everything. Other sites or organizations archive this information as well. So members who are imploring Goatboy to delete posts are not going to gain anything. Same for name changes. Changing your username, at this point, gains you nothing. I skipped from the bottom of page 4 of this thread to the top of page 12, so forgive me if this has not been said repeatedly. ...and a few posts below me, Lomshek posts a thread he had moved to his hometown forum. So sifting through the Hometown forums should now be for Team members only, when any lefty can buy a Team membership? This isn't going to work. I appreciate Goatboy's trying to save the site, but this isn't going to do it. |
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Quoted: Does this website have a Warrant Canary? I've never felt the need to ask before. Quoted: Quoted: So far ZERO. Let's keep it that way. Does this website have a Warrant Canary? I've never felt the need to ask before. That's a very interesting question actually. |
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Quoted: Yes, we'll hide in the shadows. They'll never know we're jews then. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Good job being fucking capitulators. Other American citizens are absolutely my enemy now. There are two opposite ideologies at odds here. There is no middle ground, no compromise. Either their side is in power in the end or ours. You don't back down when they try to punk you out. You stand tall and kick their fucking teeth in. I enlisted to fight Islam and I'll do whatever I have to here at home to fight authoritarianism/communism. Violence founded this nation. Violence will save it. But violence posted on a website will get it shut down. There is such a thing as self control and self preservation. Get your point across without threats! Simple right? Yes, we'll hide in the shadows. They'll never know we're jews then. I'm certain the planners of the Boston Tea Party just sat around talking about it wherever they pleased and certainly made no effort to vet the people they were planning it with. |
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Quoted: 100% lets do this somehow. Maybe we can send some form of ID to prove we are who we say we are? Quoted: Quoted: No offense GB, but a bronze membership is cheap and a small price to pay have full access. I wouldn’t mind seeing a forum for long time or vetted members to post in. Team allows access by just buying a membership. Now how to figure out who’s legit.......that might be easier said than done. 100% lets do this somehow. Maybe we can send some form of ID to prove we are who we say we are? Could pretty easily start with people that have gone out of their way to get NRA, VCDL, SAF, .mil, etc badges. |
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Quoted: Absolutely this. Paid members should have 5 selectable options of self-purge; all requested to and approved by admin before taking effect. 1) Remove all external url tags ever posted by the user (delete the url hotlink and the hotlinked text within posts) 2) Remove all external img tags to ever posted by the user (delete the hotlinked image within posts) 3) Remove all internal ARFcom hosted images ever uploaded by the user... not just from the post, but the actual image file from the server. 4) User Removed from system: All posts made by a user and any @ tags with their username are changed to "USER_REMOVED" - this keeps the content of posts so threads don't become disjointed when someone self-purges. 5) Total Nuke. Every post and every @ and every mention of someone's name in others' posts (if it's a unique moniker) are disappeared - like they never existed. Quoted: Quoted: If opsec is actually a concern - allow members to purge their account history, or self-delete posts - AND CHANGE USERNAMES. Absolutely this. Paid members should have 5 selectable options of self-purge; all requested to and approved by admin before taking effect. 1) Remove all external url tags ever posted by the user (delete the url hotlink and the hotlinked text within posts) 2) Remove all external img tags to ever posted by the user (delete the hotlinked image within posts) 3) Remove all internal ARFcom hosted images ever uploaded by the user... not just from the post, but the actual image file from the server. 4) User Removed from system: All posts made by a user and any @ tags with their username are changed to "USER_REMOVED" - this keeps the content of posts so threads don't become disjointed when someone self-purges. 5) Total Nuke. Every post and every @ and every mention of someone's name in others' posts (if it's a unique moniker) are disappeared - like they never existed. @Goatboy Thoughts? |
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Quoted: I hate that this is happening. Just wanted to be left the fuck alone but no, no can do. "We are not going to let you go back to your old life" - Big Mike Obama I kind of wonder if a complete scram of GD would be a good idea and rebuild the political side behind a paywall. While I have no doubt that the more incendiary stuff that is posted has been preserved by outside entities, I am betting the site owners are not legally obligated to retain copy of any/all things that have been posted since the dawn of the site. In another words, blank out GD, delete all topics, threads, post/member history and any/all photos that have been uploaded, let members change Usernames, reset post counts etc. If we are really that worried about this, might as well make it harder for them. Like the idea of allowing things like protonmail for registration. Maybe allow some non directly tied payment for memberships (crypto?). |