Oct 13, 2020
Why does an Antifa URL link to Joe Biden’s website?
Internet trolls connected to terrorists created a fake Antifa website and forwarded the URL to Biden’s site.
Does Antifa’s main URL actually link to Joe Biden’s website? Yes. Its called a “redirect” and it happens so fast you won’t even see it. Unfortunately, almost anyone can do it. Before linking to Biden’s website in August 2020, the group that owns the domain also linked to Kamala Harris’ website.
Individuals and businesses often use a redirect for legitimate purposes, such as when they are migrating to a new website or sending product orders to a third-party vendor. But sometimes, as in this case — it’s a malicious prank.
Biden is not the only target — IamaRussianSpy(dot)com currently links to Donald Trump’s campaign website, and at one point TedCruz.com linked to Beto O’Rourke’s campaign site.
Who owns “Antifa(dot)com”?
The Antifa URL is owned by a sketchy company called NameCheap, which is a domain registration and web-hosting platform. Microsoft won an injunction against the owners in March 2020 for trying to penetrate Microsoft customer accounts, and for sending malicious spyware. The company appears to be registered in Panama. It had a recently created Twitter account (April 2020) that was suspended for violating Twitter rules.
NameCheap also owns a prank site called freedomnumerals.com, which attempts to convince Americans that Arabic numbers should not be taught in schools. (Spoiler alert: the Arabic numeric system is the one we use every day.)
Who owns NameCheap.com?!?
NameCheap has little transparency and does not list its owners, but after a little sleuthing I discovered that it, in turn, belongs to Enom, which in turn belongs to Tucows.
Tucows is notorious for:
- hosting sites that sell illegal goods
- sponsoring hate sites like 4-Chan and 8-Chan, which were delisted by Google for hosting child pornography, and hosting numerous swatting attacks and terrorist attacks announced and planned by users
- hosting sites for known Al-Qaeda financiers, ISIS, the Pakistani Taliban and SniperAfrica
- hosting Stormfront … the most notorious white nationalist site out there
Does this Antifa site really represent Antifa members?
Prior to its attack on Biden, the Antifa URL appeared to have a platform and membership page. The Wayback Machine captured a screenshot and saved it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200724052633/https://www.antifa.com/
But it’s doubtful, given NameCheap’s shady foreign networks and history of attacking a range of targets with different ideologies, that the site is actually owned by an Antifa group. Facebook Group Antifa International denies owning the URL and said to Reuters that they do not support, endorse or link to any politicians.
There has even been speculation that the Trump campaign, which is known to engage in producing fraudulent videos and deceptive ads, may have hired internet mercenaries like NameCheap and Tucows to perform the redirection attack on Biden’s site.
Can innocent sites protect themselves?
Yes. Websites can and should protect themselves from unwarranted forwarding attacks by using robust firewalls, running automated threat scanners, and keeping software up-to-date. However, because of the internet’s wide variety of servers and code, redirection attacks— which are fairly easy to create — can require the services of an experienced coder to deflect.
National politicians should definitely have accomplished internet security teams in place, or use professional third-party IT security services. If they can’t keep their own websites safe, how can they keep America safe?
