
Who’s behind the “reopen” domain surge? - feross
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-domain-surge/
======
jka
It's fairly remarkable to see how weaponized misinformation is becoming.

Here's a snippet from Wikipedia[1] detailing the background behind the
already-very-dubiously-named Local Government Information Services -- which is
in no way a federally (or even regionally) accredited institution:

"Locality Labs published Hinsdale School News, a newspaper that masqueraded as
the student publication of a high school in Hinsdale, Illinois by using the
logo of Hinsdale Township High School District 86. In March 2019, the
publication released a number of articles opposing a Hinsdale referendum that
would increase the school district's budget by $140 million.[1] Officials from
District 86 sent a cease and desist letter to Franklin Archer, LGIS, and other
related companies, claiming that their publication of the Hinsdale School News
was deceptive and violated trademark law.[5]"

This is a wake-up call for authenticity.

Regardless of whether foreign influence is involved -- and it can be very
challenging to determine whether it is -- U.S. nationals are taking actions
that imitate authority without possessing it.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Government_Information_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Government_Information_Services)

~~~
tomcam
> very-dubiously-named Local Government Information Services

Not trying to be arch here: Federal Express is an equally hinky name, isn't
it? I've always thought it was confusingly, well, federal-sounding.

~~~
bzusb
I'm not American and because of the name I've always assumed federal express
was government-related.

~~~
cpeterso
And don't confuse UPS (United Parcel Service) and USPS (United States Postal
Service).

~~~
ptha
Then there's the band "The Postal Service" that got a cease and desist from
USPS to stop using their trademark.

However it had a happy ending: _the United States Postal Service -- the real
one, as in stamps and letters -- signed an agreement with Sub Pop granting a
free license to use the name in exchange for working to promote using the
mail. Future copies of the album and the group 's follow-up work will have a
notice about the trademark, while the federal Postal Service will sell the
band's CD's on its Web site, potentially earning a profit. The band may do
some television commercials for the post office._

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/arts/music/postal-
service...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/arts/music/postal-service-tale-
indie-rock-snail-mail-and-trademark-law.html)

------
paulgb
> Both the Minnesota and Pennsylvania gun advocacy sites include the same
> Google Analytics tracker in their source code

I enjoy the irony of an analytics tool designed to track users instead being
used to reveal something the site owner was trying to hide. There's just
something poetic about it.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Don’t get it, can one group of people not represent the same interest in two
different states?

How is this scandal?

edit: tons of claims and downvotes, not one hard bit of evidence to show this
is not an authentic organization. IDK, maybe it’s not, I don’t actually care,
but I thought bullshit baseless claims weren’t supposed to be accepted here?

~~~
PragmaticPulp
> How is this scandal?

When political organizations with ulterior motives try to disguise their work
as a grassroots movement, it's called astroturfing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)

Also, it should go without saying that an organization actively organizing
people to defy critical Coronavirus-related quarantine procedures is a
scandal, regardless of the source. The fact that a political organization is
trying to obfuscate the source of the dissent is even more scandalous.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Can you source this is not a grassroots organization? Because I see the claim,
and the assumption, but again, I don’t know how it’s scandal that one org
can’t represent their topic in two states.

edit: apparently not. Everyone wants to believe it’s true, so it is

~~~
millstone
This is like the Tea Party: there really is an authentic grassroots movement,
AND it is being organized and promoted by a range of elite conservative
institutions, including Fox News and the White House.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Citation? I believe you of course. I just would like to see the evidence for
all of this.

Edit: no, apparently no citation is coming. Wild claims, no sources. Just
blame Fox News the one mostly conservative outlet compared to the hundred
counterparts like it’s still 2008

~~~
anigbrowl
Don't be a sealion. [http://wondermark.com/1k62/](http://wondermark.com/1k62/)

------
ashtuchkin
I'm pretty sure the Russian trail in this article is a red herring.

I looked up "Валентина Сынах" Skype user and, as expected, their full phone
number is +7904xxxxxxx (see full number in the article), with Russian prefix
+7. Note, WHOIS records have US number +1904xxxxxxx. Not sure why the author
only searched for the last 10 digits.

+7 904 code is a very busy area code in Russia shared by several major
carriers, covering the majority of Russian regions, so the probability of
someone having any particular 7 digits in that area is pretty high. For
example there's someone else registered in Skype with number +7904xxxxxx4,
just one digit apart. I haven't been able to find an English source, but you
can look at the list of carriers and regions in Russian in [1].

Also, US area code +1 904 matches the address in WHOIS records (both
Jacksonville, FL), so at least it doesn't look like someone just changed the
first digit and used their own Russian number.

[1] [https://www.kody.su/mobile/904](https://www.kody.su/mobile/904)

~~~
gorgoiler
Very interesting. Friendly heads up: seeing full phone numbers posted here
feels quite uncomfortable. If you’re sure there’s no potential for getting it
wrong that’s cool but it’s risky if you’re not 100% sure it’s harm-free. Maybe
redact them?

~~~
ashtuchkin
Updated, thanks!

------
Loughla
>[. . .] the Dorr brothers simply seek “to stir the pot and make as much
animosity as they can, and then raise money off that animosity.

I am fascinated by people like this. They have to understand they are doing
awful things to the world around them. How do people like that sleep at night,
or look themselves in the mirror?

Even if you believe in gun rights to the extreme, being purposefully
combative, negative, divisive, and awful just to make money is not a great
look. How? Why? Why do people do these things?

~~~
oldsklgdfth
Troll level one million!

I have a couple of friends that are trolls(they call themselves that). They
frequent Facebook and they make silly comments are try to rile people up,
because....well i guess they're bored. They take pride in being banned from
Facebook so shock humor. They are pretty funny.

Why is this relevant? What I have learned from them is that high-speed
internet is conducive to trolling at all levels. Facebook users want comments
and reactions, so their post do just that. Large sites want clicks and
attention, so their content does just that.

A deep multifaceted conversation is boring and difficult to do. And above all
else does not give you the same satisfaction as emotional content. The
internet is an emotional medium, not a rational one. I treat it that way. To
learn more on this check out neil portman, specifically his book "amusing
ourselves to death".

I try to remind myself that things on the internet could very well have been
produced by an angry techsavvy teenager, rather than to attribute any
authority to it.

~~~
dboreham
Something I've noticed, and fallen victim to in recent weeks, is that FB will
often display in my feed a post by a news site (for me, they're usually NPR,
CNBC or the local TV station), and underneath they'll display exactly _one_
comment. That one comment is almost always something insane (no more serious
than the flu, they're counting all dead people not just dead from the virus,
you get the picture). But when I open the story to view all comments, there
are hundreds of not-insane ones. In fact it is often impossible to find the
"featured" comment if I wanted to reply since there are so many others. I get
the distinct impression that FB has an algorithm that promotes disinformation
comments in order to....well I assume in order to make more money somehow.
I've had to train myself to read the news stories (which are useful to me) but
brain-skip over the featured comment.

~~~
hjek
I'm not on facebook but it sounds entirely plausible. Facebook conducts
psychological experiments[0] to optimise for user engagement so if that anger
can make you stay a bit longer and see a few more ads then that's money for
them.

Those precious hate dollars have deadly consequences though, especially for
Muslims[1][2].

[0]:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-
apologises-psychological-experiments-on-users)

[1]: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-
facebook...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook-
idUSKCN1GO2PN)

[2]: [https://theintercept.com/2019/12/07/facebook-mark-
zuckerberg...](https://theintercept.com/2019/12/07/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-
muslims-islamophobia/)

~~~
oldsklgdfth
Also not on fb. It sounds plausible to me as well.

But even in the best case scenario social media is not a robust system and
will amplify controversy.

In addition there is money to be made by fanning the flames. I mean it pretty
genius, people get angry they go on fb to rant about it.

Zuckerberg will be a name remembered like Carnegie, but not for making
anything. Just for owning feelings and controversy. Second best to owning the
color blue.

------
hysan
This is a fascinating example of real world propaganda that, given the impact
of the pandemic, has a high probability of being in history textbooks. Given
that, I’m curious, how do does the HN population think we should respond?

Imagine looking back on this in hindsight. What type of picture would we want
to paint for future generations to learn from?

~~~
MattGaiser
The problem is that finding truth is so much more time consuming than lying. A
couple friends and I looked at creating a Canadian fact-checking website as we
don't really have a Politifact up north, especially not for the smaller
provinces.

We gave up when we went on Twitter to see just how much nonsense was floating
around and realizing that even basic lies took 30 minutes each to refute.
Assuming that we had perfect access to people's information feeds and assuming
they all believed us anyway (and many wouldn't), we would still need 6x as
many people as popular trolls/liars existed to fight back.

You would basically need to have a legion of volunteers willing to spend 30
minutes undoing 5 minutes of damage.

~~~
basementcat
Some experts argue that "fact checking" sites are a waste of resources. Those
who believe the misinformation would not accept the "fact check" as plausible
and those open to questioning the misinformation generally find the truth on
their own.

Relevant lecture from US Army War College:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUpCiA0WZ5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUpCiA0WZ5k)

~~~
interestica
I think the value sometimes is in having relevant resources to point to when
in localized arguments. (If someone is repeating a falsehood, I can direct
them to resources that refute it rather than having to do all the searching
repeatedly).

~~~
ativzzz
Such arguments are usually emotional and spouting off facts is unlikely to
change the other person's stance and instead make them double down harder.

~~~
coffeecat
I've attempted to engage with people in ideological echo chambers not by
citing any specific facts that contradict their beliefs, but by asking them to
state their own beliefs using more specific and concrete language. "What
exactly is your definition of communism?", "Has Bernie made any specific
statements indicating that he supports that policy? If not, what leads you to
infer that he does?", etc.

The results? No engagement at all.

~~~
ativzzz
People do not want to be challenged in an echo chamber. Either talk to them
(without convincing them of anything) outside the chamber, or walk away.

------
lsiebert
Apparently Michael Murphy registered a bunch of domains to try to block people
doing this BS, not to support it, and isn't related to the other
registrations.

[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-
liberate...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-
urls/)

~~~
drapred7
Great find Isiebert.

>Almost all of the hate was coming from liberals, many of them egged on by
presuming posts from amateur Twitter sleuths [...] None of the hate was from
conservatives angry at him for keeping them from using the domains themselves.

This is consistent with the GOP astroturfing the registrations. The Left's
response is obviously organic, if vitriolic.

------
saagarjha
I find it interesting that many of the protestors, including one holding a
sign saying "COVID-19 is a lie", are wearing face masks.

~~~
nsxwolf
I would like to think it's possible to protest lockdowns and their economic
destruction while also taking the virus seriously and observing social
distancing and wearing masks.

~~~
oldsklgdfth
I am very concerned about the economic impact this will have and I am also
taking this seriously and observing social distancing.

What would be a reason to protest lockdowns?

~~~
sky_rw
The fact that protesting is illegal is reason enough in the USA to protest. If
the government can take away fundamental rights via executive fiat then we
never had rights in the first place, we had permissions.

For many it's a matter of principle. For others who are literally having to
stand in food lines for the first time ever and are unable to pay rent or
write paychecks, it's a matter of survival.

~~~
xxpor
Protesting isn't illegal if you follow social distancing guidelines. I can't
imagine courts would have an issue with that under a time, manner and place
restriction framework.

~~~
orblivion
Infamous tweet from Raleigh PD indicates how police feel about it:

[https://twitter.com/raleighpolice/status/1250111779574894594](https://twitter.com/raleighpolice/status/1250111779574894594)

(No qualifications about distancing)

~~~
xxpor
And they got ratio'd to death, as they should have. Cops don't have law
degrees (and well to be fair, neither do I).

------
sevencolors
Seems it wasn't some fringe group. Just an old hippie trying to preempt such
groups:

[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-
liberate...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-
urls/)

~~~
wideasleep1
Well, that certainly wasn't the dramatic irony I was expecting!

“I bought these names to try to stop the insanity, basically. And it just
turned to insanity,” he said. He felt forced to unplug his phone, and his
inbox exploded with messages attacking him—and potentially trying to hack him.

Almost all of the hate was coming from liberals, many of them egged on by
presuming posts from amateur Twitter sleuths who mistakenly pegged Murphy as a
conservative organizing protests in defiance of nationwide stay at home
orders. None of the hate was from conservatives angry at him for keeping them
from using the domains themselves."

edit: Tomorrow, I wonder if we'll be reading Brian's mea culpa. He did go
overboard with the whole Azrael Abyss tone, and was clearly trolled. Poor Guy.
On the interwebs, the stories just write themselves.

------
rayhendricks
Link to the reddit thread explaining things here. Alright there is most likely
more than one astroturfing actor right now.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/i_simply_c...](https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/i_simply_cannot_believe_that_people_are/fnstpyl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

------
ggm
I'm not hunting to a false moral equivalence and there is no need for a
bilateral symmetry here. I just observe as the comments in the Krebs article
do: where are the Dems/BlueFlag equivalents? Their absence is interesting.

I actually do take heart from a lack of obscured PAC type industry funded
backrooms behind the absent 'stay locked down' protest movement. Is throws the
lack of goodwill into sharper focus perhaps.

~~~
papeda
Same type of question: was there ever popular left-wing AM radio? Like a
counterpart to Rush Limbaugh? Like highly emotive and monetized liberal (in
the American sense) talk radio?

~~~
casefields
Yes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(radio_network)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_\(radio_network\))

~~~
papeda
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. But I don't think it qualifies as
"popular". The Wikipedia page says it lost around $10mil a year and then
folded after 6 years in a mess of debts.

At around the same time, Rush Limbaugh's salary was $30mil+.

------
WaitWaitWha
At this point, I see two problems with Kreb's article.

First, to me only the VA tweet was specific to 2nd Amendment. The others were
not. I presume VA was specifically noted because of the recent gun law past
there.

Second, this smells more like domain kiting or tasting where it worked. Most
seem to jump on the "political" bandwagon on the intention of the domain
owner. I disagree. Kreb points to "were created just hours after", "Web site
design company", and "promoted nothing but spammy paid surveys for years".
That reads to me more like an web marketing opportunist trying to get eyeballs
for ad revenue.

------
quotemstr
I am much more worried about censorship under the guise of "fighting
misinformation" than about any level of misinformation. A functioning
democracy is robust against people saying random things in public. If you feel
the need to use some central authority to stop people saying things --- even
if you think those things are "astroturf" or whatever --- something is
fundamentally broken.

So what if someone wants to launch a bunch of "reopen" websites in some
coordinated way? These websites just say something. It's not some kind of
attack. It's a bunch of words.

------
teilo
These are not "gun rights" groups. These are "gun rights" clickbait scams,
targeting the grass-roots conservative types to get them to join various
"rights" organizations. There are a bunch of these groups, and they do
absolutely no lobbying. I suspect most of them are shell companies for a fewer
number of individuals. They claim to be non-profits, but are not tax exempt.
They have been around for many years, and they always use the latest hot-
button issue to exploit their target audience. I'm amazed no one's gone after
them yet.

------
CharlesMerriam2
The "reopen" campaigns are simple strategy for recruiting members. The states
will reopen, eventually and inevitably, and your raw recruits will claim
credit for forcing a change on 'the establishment'.

Making an assumptive sale that they are cohesive group by registering many
domains seems like a valid tactic.

What am I missing?

~~~
yellow_postit
I’d bet a lot of the members also end up on some PAC donation mailing lists
supporting predominantly one political party.

------
im3w1l
So I read all of this and to me it sounds like much ado about nothing. Can
anyone explain, without loaded language, what is wrong here?

"People I don't like (gun rights, republicans) are organizing in favor of a
cause I don't support (reopening)". Is there any more to it than that?

~~~
papeda
The content of the article explores (and to a large extent answers) the
question in its headline. It doesn't seem to make any value judgements.

It is interesting to see who is behind this cause and organizing to support
it. The track record of the Dorr brothers suggests their involvement is not
motivated by genuine interest in the cause.

~~~
casefields
And it was completely wrong:
[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-
liberate...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/reopen-liberate-
urls/)

The political tunnel vision was strong with this one.

~~~
im3w1l
I don't think your article invalidates the discussion papeda and I had. He may
have had "tunnel vision" and only focused on a small part of the story, but as
far as I can tell the Dorr Brother involvement has not been discredited.

------
elil17
There is a fundraiser going on to outbid these gun groups for domains which
are being sold by domain resellers: [https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-
anticoronavirus-websites-buy...](https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-
anticoronavirus-websites-buy-domain-
names?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1)

------
explorigin
Krebs updated the article. Basically all those domains were registered by
someone snatching them up before someone else could for the purpose of
preventing profiteering.

------
brianolson
Minnesota Public Radio reaches similar conclusions
[https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/20/behind-calls-to-
reo...](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/20/behind-calls-to-reopen-
economy-a-mn-activist-and-his-family)

------
hartator
Why can't it be our regular domain squatters?

No need to see a super consisparency. People are upset for real. And the
withdrawal of rights everywhere is indeed concerning.

~~~
belltaco
The article shows exactly why they're not regular domain squatters.

~~~
hartator
Where?

> Many of the domains are still dormant, leading to parked pages and
> registration records obscured behind privacy protection services.

All of the mentioned domains I check as either parked or a redirection. It can
be one guy deciding to surf the wave and waiting for the domains to be bought.

------
Press2forEN
One data point. I attended the local rally in my home town and I've never
heard of any of the domains or organizations mentioned in this article.

Blanket condemnation of "astroturfing" and "misinformation" just reinforces
the bubble.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
You attended in support or to watch? Why would you want to me in a crowd of
others right now?

------
anonu
Let's jump to the conclusion here that Russia is still meddling in American
politics, society and culture.

What I cannot believe is how the USA still allows this after all the country
has been through with the current administration, investigations,
impeachments.

USA's most important characteristics: openness, freedom, independence are just
tools and weapons used against us. And we never learn...

~~~
nexuist
Assuming this is all true, how do you even tackle something like this while
preserving the concept of freedom? If the government goes after groups of
people for "meddling in elections" \- well, that's very vague, isn't it?

 _Maybe_ most people don't have a problem with the FBI looking into domain
registrations, cross-checking credit card payments, obtaining warrants for
Google Analytics / Namecheap / etc...but investigating random web developers
for alleged "ties to Russia" sounds eerily similar to McCarthyism.

~~~
karatestomp
I’m beginning to think a free, international Internet isn’t compatible with
democracy. The medium is the message and the message of the Internet might end
up being autocracy and hyper-effective propaganda and disinformation. I’m not
sure it practically can live up to what we hoped it would be—some kind of
liberating, enlightening force. It may just not _be_ that, and it may be that
no amount of tinkering will fix it.

~~~
xxpor
An uneducated populace isn't compatible with democracy. This is just yet
another manifestation of that.

------
milkytron
Will this post be flagged just like the others?

~~~
jdc
You can email dang (hn@ycombinator.com) if you're worried about it.

~~~
milkytron
Thanks, just sent an email. Hopefully this post can remain unflagged.

------
russellbeattie
If Americans or American companies want to register a bunch of domains to
promote their policy agenda and political opinion, that's totally fine with
me. Even if it may be somewhat disingenuously designed to look grass roots.
It's freedom of speech and I'm in total support of it. (Regardless of how
ignorant and stupid it might be).

If Russia is doing it to sow discord, that's an act of war in my opinion, and
should be dealt with in the harshest, most severe way possible.

It won't be, of course, because the President is a Putin lackey (or close
enough to one to make no difference), but hopefully come January 20th of next
year, we will have a different president who will protect the U.S. like he
should.

~~~
thundergolfer
So what exactly would the “harshest, most severe possible” actions be?

Because when I hear someone say that in the context of war, my mind goes to
some pretty severe actions.

Would you sanction them? Maybe, but that’s hardly the “most severe”. This is
war, after all. Would you missile strike Russia?

~~~
Zenbit_UX
Direct action action on one military superpower from another doesn't happen
anymore, not since the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Any such action would
have unthinkable consequences for humanity.

America's weapon of choice is economic devastation via sanctions, it can
leverage its position in the world to convince its allies to follow suit for
added effect. Russia, on the outside of NATO, is forced to play a more subtle
game, sowing discord and long term instability.

------
OliverJones
I live five miles from the New Hampshire border. We've long chuckled that
their state slogan should be "Live Free Then Die." It's possible this will
come true for some victims of this disinformation campaign. And victims they
will be.

In the meantime, Brian Krebs is just the guy to feed the trolls. His site is
rigged for handling DDOS.

I wonder? Is it time for Twitter to reevaluate their account-closing policies,
to make it easier for them to suspend accounts belonging to persons who spread
disinformation about the epidemic?

~~~
pattrn
I live a mile north of New Hampshire's southern border. We have no income tax,
no sales tax, the median property tax is within $800 per year of the
neighboring states, and the median income is only $3,000 per year less than
Massachusetts (pretty sure after accounting for taxes, New Hampshire is
higher). As far as death rates go, the life expectancy is 79.5 years, which is
pretty close to the 80.5 in Massachusetts and 79.7 in Vermont. Contrary to
popular belief, we've been practicing social distancing for many years, simply
due to the our low population density (/kidding). It's a pretty great place to
live.

Life's good here, especially if you're a software developer. Come join the
dark side! We have cookies.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
As someone who was more or less forced to move to southern New England for his
career I love northern New England but I have less than high opinion for
people who talk it up as though it's the greatest thing ever. People moving to
Northern New England for the taxes (after counting government fees and other
taxes it's not really that low when it's all said and done) or the low prices
or other shallow benefits and don't understand that these are different places
with different cultures (though if their only experience is the I95 or I93
corridor I can see how someone might miss that) will be the death of it. I
have lived in ME, NH and VT, they all have distinct cultures that are
different than the culture you get in MA and CT (haven't lived in RI). I'm not
gonna say they're wholesale superior (obviously it comes down to personal
values and preference) but I find the things their culture does right very
important personally and the things it does wrong very unimportant so
naturally I like them all a lot better than MA and CT. If you're gonna move to
NH, ME or VT do it for the culture fit, not for the shallow crap like being
able to buy beer at Walmart. Also, to anyone from NH, ME or VT reading this,
sorry for lumping you all together but I think we can all agree you have more
in common with each other than you do with any state to the south.

So yeah, it's a great place to live but please stop broadcasting that or it
will stop being that way.

~~~
pattrn
I completely agree with you that the culture isn't for everyone. Many towns
lack basic government services like trash pickup and public utilities, likely
due to the reduced taxes (I haven't done a comparison, so this is just a
guess). I was mostly addressing the original poster. If he/she lives five
miles from the border, I suspect that the culture doesn't differ much.

------
jorblumesea
Where is US counter-intel in this? Isn't this what the FBI is supposed to be
handling and partially designed for? It seems crazy that possible foreign
entities are causing chaos at home and we seem unable (unwilling?) to stop it.

~~~
meowface
Who's to say counter-intelligence isn't already all over it?

There's only so much they can do besides monitor, analyze, and attribute it,
though. They publicly announce things when there's a lot of aggregated
evidence collected over time, and high potential impact, like some of the past
official announcements about the election interference.

Releasing a statement for every instance of confirmed or suspected
disinformation/propaganda just isn't practical and also may just play right
into the hands of the intelligence agency they're trying to counter.

It's possible the actors may, on some level, actually want their plausibly
deniable actions to be recognized in some cases. It creates yet another wedge
in American politics, just like all of the other stuff Russian intelligence
has done in recent years. They or others may be trying to construct a double
bind: one sort of victory if they remain undetected or at least unexposed;
another sort of victory if they do get exposed.

Not to mention the primary practical purpose of keeping it secret so they can
continue to monitor further activity. If they blow the lid on it, they'll
change tactics and be harder to trace in the future. That's why spy rings are
often tracked over years before being busted, like the case involving Anna
Chapman. You can't effectively counter intelligence if you immediately
announce that the intelligence has been countered. In infosec terms, it's like
burning a zero-day.

Also, there isn't any solid evidence this is Russian state-sponsored activity.
Certainly a real possibility, but also could just be a random dude trying to
make a buck and/or have fun. Either way, there's surely a ton of stuff going
on behind the scenes which we're not aware of and may never be aware of.
Surely some intelligence or law enforcement people have seen this very thread,
or at least the Krebs article.

Finally, there could already be some covert countering occurring, like when
Cyber Command targeted Russia's IRA troll farm in 2018 and temporarily
disabled their internet access.

------
throwawaysea
I don't understand why it matters if the reopen domains or Facebook groups are
being created/organized by some individuals or a group. There are dubious
claims from Reddit labeling this as 'astroturfing', but astroturfing would
require that these actors create fake accounts or pay for posts or hire actors
for protesters. But everything seems to point at the protesters being real
individuals who are simply aligned on the sentiment of reopening.

Even if someone is gaining in some way from the effort of registering domains,
creating Facebook groups, and writing descriptions, I don't think it removes
the legitimacy of the underlying sentiment or protesters. I don't think it
makes it "less grassroots". After all, literally every other act of protest or
campaigning or other activism involves _organizing_. Unless we're about to
claim that anyone performing organizing is astroturfing, it is nonsensical to
apply the label here.

