"As Micfo amassed VPN clients using the illegitimately-obtained IP addresses, a lot of traffic — some being criminal — filed through its network without a trace, according to government subpoenas directed at Micfo and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Golestan and Micfo are not charged with being part of or even aware of illegal activity transmitted via VPNs across Micfo’s servers. The DOJ charged him and the company with “defrauding the internet registry to obtain the IP addresses over a period of several years.”
Prosecutors said Golestan’s alleged scheme was valued at $14 million, which was based on the government’s estimated value of between $13 and $19 for each address in the secondary market, according to the court complaint.
Born in Iran, Golestan, 36, started Micfo in 1999 in the bedroom of his childhood home in Dubai before emigrating to the U.S." https://www.pymnts.com/innovation/2020/secure-smart-cities-c...
The fake “Channel Partners” addressed in the article are paragraph 4 of the indictment. The article addresses some of the mechanisms by which they were used to evade legal process for the purpose of concealment, the indictment deals with the fact that they were used for that purpose. It seems preposterous to view those as unrelated.
No, it doesn't. It says they responded to subpoenas for each entity.
>the indictment deals with the fact that they were used for that purpose.
Nope. The indictment is about using the shell companies to get additional IP addresses out of ARIN. It has nothing to do with any deficiency in responding to subpoenas, or any illegal use of the IP addresses by spammers, etc.
The article lists a bunch of things and either implies or explicitly says they are crimes, when none are. This includes having multiple shell companies, which is perfectly legal. Submitting false documentation for those shell companies is illegal, but is not mentioned by OP, presumably because they would not have been in a position to observe any of that documentation.
It says that when a parent company agent was in possession of a warrant addressed to the parent company at the location of one of the fraudulent “Channel Partners” they were ordered to interact with law enforcement as if they were exclusively an agent of the “Channel Partner”.
Now, I suppose that could be argued to not be primarily intended to evade compliance with the warrant but instead to maintain the fraud of the independence of the “Channel Partners”, but either way it's a deliberate act in furtherance of a crime that could be separately prosecuted.
You still don't get it. The fraud was submitting false documentation to ARIN. Operating multiple shell companies is perfectly legal, as long as you don't submit false sworn affidavits and otherwise lie in the course of your activities.
Responding to a subpoena as the entity it was sent to isn't lying. It says there was one occasion where the subpoena had both Micfo and a channel partners' info on it, and he says he wasn't permitted to reach out to LEO to clarify.
Regardless, it's not an act "in furtherance of a crime" - the crime was committed at the point they obtained the IP addresses.
Sure, what's not is:
Having the registered principals of those shell companies be fictitious (as in this case).
Having agents of your company who have received a warrant addressed to your company pretend that your company has not received it, whether the purpose is to evade the warrant or to avoid drawing attention to your fraudulent front companiest (as, again, in this case.)
> Responding to a subpoena as the entity it was sent to isn't lying.
A subpoena or warrant is a command. Receiving it and not obeying the command fully is a crime.
> It says there was one occasion where the subpoena had both Micfo and a channel partners' info on
No, it says a warrant was addressed to Micfo but received by Micfo employees at the “Channel Partner”. It does not say it has both companies info on it. Even if it did, directing employees to pretend your firm has not received a court order naming your firm when in fact your firm has received it is not legal.
> Regardless, it's not an act "in furtherance of a crime" - the crime was committed at the point they obtained the IP addresses.
If the intent was to preserve the illusion of the distinct identity of the channel partners tonorent discovery of the fraud, it absolutely was an act in furtherance of the crime, and a knowing participant (that is, knowing of the purpose, not just the act itself) in it would, even if they had no other connection to the concealed crime, be an accessory after the fact.
It never says they pretended not to receive it, or that they didn't obey the "command" fully. If they had not obeyed any subpoenas, I assume they would have been charged with doing so.
> It does not say it has both companies info on it. Even if it did, directing employees to pretend your firm has not received a court order naming your firm when in fact your firm has received it is not legal.
It says it was sent to the Channel Partner - it's not clear how but I assume it came through an email to the Channel Partner.
"Even if it did, directing employees to pretend your firm has not received a court order naming your firm when in fact your firm has received it is not legal."
I don't understand your theory where responding to a subpoena and signing it as one entity is "pretending" you haven't received a court order.
We'll have to agree to disagree on whether the set of facts in OP represents a crime. But even if so, it remains the case that everything described in OP, if it happened at a company that hadn't committed fraud but was using shell companies legitimately, would have been perfectly legal.
Where did that happen? It certainly isn't alleged by OP.
IP “ownership” is not a real thing.
It appears the law in this case feels differently.
The owners claimed under legal penalty that they had certain assets (paying customers, needs for IP addressing, etc). These statements appear to have been completely false. Thus, the trial.
And yes, lying to ARIN (or any RIR) about your customer base (need for IPv4 addressing) is just plain crappy. IPv4 addressing is a common resource - a 32-bit fixed address space - similar in concept to physical frequency allocation by the FCC.
There are 4.2B IPv4 addresses (minus some for RFC1918 and MCAST, etc). To lay illegitimate claim to them is really wrong, and more importantly, legally risky now.
The trial is about different alleged wrongdoings than OP is going on about.
Both a fraudulent system of shell companies and knowingly profiting by enabling spam are alleged on the article, and both have been the subject of criminal charges against the firm and it's CEO. [0]
[0] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/05/a-tough-week-for-ip-addr...
Your source doesn't say that. I read the indictment and it doesn't charge them for "knowingly profiting by enabling spam".
You have responded to multiple comments with baseless FUD-like claims.
To which I contend.....
I smell Astro-turf!!!
And I was somewhat taken aback at how much pushback I got based on people completely misreading the article. It's one thing to disagree with me over what exactly is legal, it's another to start asserting that the company itself was running spamming services in the absence of any evidence. That surprised me. The government hasn't asserted it, the OP doesn't assert it, I can't find that claim anywhere but this thread.
Don’t defend fraud artists dude.
Although here I'm mainly trying to clarify the law. People taking OP at face value will come away with a very incorrect impression of what's legal and not.
Also, OP didn't "put together a model" exposing hidden relationships. Every company they named was already in the indictment from last May.
You're the one defending someone who's wrong.
Also, I'm not defending the fraud, but the (legality) of the parts of this that aren't fraudulent. I understand that you believe it's ok to smear anyone as long as they've done something else you dislike. I disagree.
Ok chief. I'll wait to see the outcome of the legal case. That has 10000x more weight than a random internet commenter that appears to be continually injecting FUD.
Also, just incase you missed my prior comment: Don't defend fraud artists.
Just in case you missed all my previous comments: lying is bad regardless of the target.
None of the things mentioned here are crimes, as far as I can tell. The crime they were actually charged with was using these shell companies to get more IP addresses than they were "entitled" to get. See the indictment at https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.scd.250342/...