"Cease and desist" email from BREIN.

[hireshi]

I knew it was only a matter of time.
I received a "cease and desist" email from BREIN, demanding the immediate takedown of my website or expect severe penalties. 

They claim to sit on my information, but the guy who host my domain is a personal contact of mine, and has admitted to given BREIN only the information I signed up with. Which was all fake, (stolen credit card), etc.

They tell me they know where I live, giving me an address in Rotterdam, which is from a VPN I used when I registered on my host.


The penalties in mention are £12,000 every 24 hours I keep the website up. But so far they get got jack and squat on me.



Any suggestions on what I should do about it? Taking down the site isn't an option.

[dolly_cat]

Well, if you're using some name servers that mask your IP and the provider is someone you can trust, just sit down and eat some popcorn while reading "cease and desist" letters

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Very important: DO NOT REPLY to those e-mails (as you will give away your IP, and we don't want this to happen).

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Out of curiosity, can you please share the domain with us?

[Moe]

Out of curiosity, can you please share the domain with us?

That would be a bad idea, given the context of this thread.  They can read forums and search google too.  No need to give them any more puzzle pieces.


Regarding the OP, if there exists any possibility they can find you, then unless you are willing to take on the financial risks involved with ignoring them, you should take the site down and maybe re-locate it with a fresh identity.

[᠎]

It sounds like you are OK for now but don't underestimate BREIN. Don't assume that the only way they could possibly have found out anything about you is by asking one single guy who hosts your domain. Don't assume that they will give up, or be unable to ever find out anything more about you, if you simply ignore them. They are a serious operation with a track record of closing sites, and in being willing to take things to court. They don't always win but the point is their threats are not necessarily empty.

As Moe says: there are real risks here. You're the only one who can decide whether to roll the dice or not.

[hireshi]

Out of curiosity, can you please share the domain with us?

That would be a bad idea, given the context of this thread.  They can read forums and search google too.  No need to give them any more puzzle pieces.


Regarding the OP, if there exists any possibility they can find you, then unless you are willing to take on the financial risks involved with ignoring them, you should take the site down and maybe re-locate it with a fresh identity.

It was on a Dutch server, but got it relocated to South Korea with the help of a friend from Seoul.
I didn't change the domain name, but I deleted my admin profile and all files of it, had another one made through a genuine South Korean IP, and I only access it on VPN through a library now.

As for Brein actually finding me, I wouldn't underestimate them ^ but considering where my website now is hosted, and the relative small size of my site compared to many others, and the measures I now take to keep my team hidden, I will follow my gut and believe that they won't go to the extreme, at this point, to try and track me down.
If they do get close, I will take it down, move it and give it a new name. But I ain't taking it down unless it is the absolute last and final option.

Thanks for the infos, especially the "no-reply" on email.

ps: I have bought a good VPN for my admin team, but are there any scripts or plugins, that would automatically give all my members a temporary random IP once they sign on?

[Moe]

ps: I have bought a good VPN for my admin team, but are there any scripts or plugins, that would automatically give all my members a temporary random IP once they sign on?

IP is determined by whatever VPN server they are connected to.

But something else (which is also free) is tor. As part of tor, you can also set up a tor hidden service - which in addition to keeping visitors anonymous, also allows the site to keep operating through domain or DNS issues.

Additionally, you can set up an automated task to remove IPs of some or all members from the database and logs after a period of time. Or just not log them at all.

[hireshi]

ps: I have bought a good VPN for my admin team, but are there any scripts or plugins, that would automatically give all my members a temporary random IP once they sign on?

IP is determined by whatever VPN server they are connected to.

But something else (which is also free) is tor.  As part of tor, you can also set up a tor hidden service - which in addition to keeping visitors anonymous, also allows the site to keep operating through domain or DNS issues.

Additionally, you can set up an automated task to remove IPs of some or all members from the database and logs after a period of time.  Or just not log them at all.

This is definitely something I will look into.
And thanks, totally forgot about Tor lol.

[N4NC3Y]

ps: I have bought a good VPN for my admin team, but are there any scripts or plugins, that would automatically give all my members a temporary random IP once they sign on?

IP is determined by whatever VPN server they are connected to.

But something else (which is also free) is tor.  As part of tor, you can also set up a tor hidden service - which in addition to keeping visitors anonymous, also allows the site to keep operating through domain or DNS issues.

Additionally, you can set up an automated task to remove IPs of some or all members from the database and logs after a period of time.  Or just not log them at all.

To add to this.

It's helpful if you also have an entry in Namecoin, if you don't already. 
It's a secondary DNS method which is takedown proof. OpenNIC can resolve Namecoin and some of us can bridge DNS requests to ICANN. 

It also helps if you add your Tor hidden server on there too, as a defacto reference, and the fingerprint of your SSL certificate.