A call that starts with a discussion about the Epik hack covers lots of ground and sometimes goes off the rails. Here are some of my takeaways.
On Thursday, September 16, Epik CEO Rob Monster held a live meeting on his platform PrayerMeeting.com in the wake of the hack of his company.
Nearly four hours of the meeting is recorded and available on YouTube. It has also been transcribed.
I read through the entire transcript. It went off the rails at times. Consider this exchange, per the transcript:
Catgod [holds a gallon-sized bag of marijuana up to the camera] You see that demons? You see that demons? God has given me, he’s just given me [crosstalk]
C What you smoking on, Catgod?
Catgod Got some A1 Yolo, got some Cherry Lime Rickey.
Monster, 3:15:57 That’s funny.
Catgod But all them demon n*****s, He’s just giving them reggie.
HF [holding vape] NYC Flow.
Monster, 3:16:06 Um, gosh guys.
Gosh guys, indeed.
Twice during the call, Monster broke into prayer to cast away demons. But Monster said he also thinks Epik will be better after the hack because God will repay the company:
Monster, 2:54:42 I think that Jesus basically allows evil to happen because he gives us free will. But I think that in the end he transmutes evil so when there’s injustice… and it’s repaid sevenfold. So this hack could happen, it’s going to actually repay Epik with a bounty sevenfold. That’s God’s… [noise from other participant, unintelligible] …but when Satan overplays his hand, does something really stupid, then the Lord transmutes that into good.
Here are some takeaways and other thoughts from reviewing the transcript:
Shitty code
Monster admitted that there was some “shitty Russian code” that came from acquisitions. He said the code stemmed from the acquisition of Intrust Domains in 2011.
Monster, 0:35:56 [reading chat. Full comment from “JP”: “I’m upset at the security incident at Epik, but my anger isn’t towards Rob specifically, he’s just human.”] “upset at the security incident at Epik but my anger isn’t towards Rob…” Yeah no, thank you, I appreciate that, JP. Yeah we… we did not nail that one. I think quite candidly that was some serious weak code, like hard-coding API keys… just weak sauce. And in reality, like I said earlier in the call, our top engineers mostly hadn’t seen that code because it was kind of blackboxed, behind a firewall, separate git repository, and not part of the Epik git. And that might sound surprising… [pauses to blow nose] sorry, I have a cold… considering that we’re like a registrar, but that’s basically because of the history of how that company became part of Epik. It was an acquisition, it is a captive dev team, and I’ve operated with that group to a large extent on the basis of trust. They’re good people, they’re honorable people, ethical, responsible people, but their coding methods and frameworks are not up to standard, and they’ve pretty much handed over all the keys to two top guys, Justin Tab, David Roman. And they’re they’re doing a great job diving into the code. And there were some very unpleasant discussions, very heated conversations, because some of the team hadn’t seen the code until until it was exposed. That might sound a little bit crazy but you have to keep in mind that we’ve grown really quickly around a core registrar, and if you want to know the history, I’ll tell you a story. You guys mind a digression? I’ll tell you a story…
Rob then tells the story about how he left DigitalTown and doubled down on Epik in August 2018 after he gets “absolute clarity that the Lord is going to need a registrar”.
Monster draws a line on free speech
Monster is clearly not a free speech absolutist. Epik has taken content down. Live during the call, he took down a site that had been spreading information and doxxed one of the callers. It’s also worth noting that he made a Texas anti-abortion group take down a site that asked people to submit information about people getting abortions.
This brings up an interesting point. Monster draws a line, and it’s a line somewhere in his philosophy and mind. Other people draw the line elsewhere, but Monster calls this deplatforming and unfair. So really, nearly everyone believes in free speech up until a point. And if their point is less restrictive than someone else’s, they call it censorship and deplatforming.
Monster elaborated on drawing the line:
We had two board directors, they were both Jewish they both resigned because of the Gab stuff I think was too hot. Then after the 8chan thing, it was a client for two days and we let them go. But it’s not easy running Epik, right? You have to understand. Trying to thread the needle on what’s lawful free speech is not an easy task. The decision tonight to turn off Joey’s site [the doxxing site] is not a light decision.
Epik apparently raised a lot of dough this year
Monster says the company raised $32 million from a billionaire in June of this year.
I think the Swastika guy interaction has been taken out of context
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t defend Monster on one thing. I saw some chatter on Twitter about a guy with a Swastika showing up to the meeting, and Monster saying, “Much love to you.” If you read the totality of the conversation, it’s clear that Monster doesn’t approve of this person’s actions and rhetoric.
Insanity (n.) A state of a person’s consciousness when logical fallacy becomes braided with cognitive bias yielding a grossly inaccurate view of reality.
Examples: Teletubbies, Goldmember, Rob Monster
In the classical period, people are a lot more simpler and honest, and a family would always pray before having a meal and go to a church on Sunday. When you speak of the Gods and prayers at that time, people think it’s normal and natural. No one would raise an eyebrow.
Nowadays, when you speak of the Gods and prayers, many people give you a strange look and would even mock you. And that’s a sign that people in this era have derailed from the Gods guidance a lot.
Fortunately, it’s good to see that there are still commendable people following and revering the Gods sincerely.
*gives Ethan Taylor a strange look and mocks him
@Ethan Taylor please leave: the classic period and God rest assured that it is not his fault that there are so many sinners like this that is being discussed about Epik and its CEO.
I am a believer and respect all religions.
I have already reprimanded and I still pray without knowing how all this will end.
This could have been a Taliban view, m.m.
First thing lawyers tell you to do is keep your mouth shut, what is this guy literally doing? Just stop, and take a timeout, and clean up this mess.
Yeah, he even mentions that on the call. That he’s going off script by doing this call. I’m sure his lawyers cringed.
Clearly a man of the people and by people I mean billionaires. Maximum cringe!
So I am having some trouble understanding THIS post, separate from whatever Rob Monster is saying or doing.
The title is “Takeaways from the Epik hack call” yet it reports on “Rob Monster held a live meeting on his platform PrayerMeeting.com”. Seems misleading… it wasn’t a call about the hack, but is it being reported on as-if it was?
Seems the 4 hour PrayerMeeting call was in some religious context? Which is his right.. having side activities involving religion… or whatever he wants… yet here we are reporting on it as-if it was a domain industry call?
Hard to understand comments like “[the call/Monster] sometimes goes off the rails” and “Monster broke into prayer to cast away demons”? Judgmental much?
If it was his own “prayer meeting” then is it perhaps normal to “cast away demons” and do whatever off-topic stuff you considered “off the rails” ? I’mnot sure… I’m not in that community. But I wouldn’t criticize it for being odd (?)
And the bit alluding to the fact that humans have to navigate nuance…. is just “duh” yet, highlighted as remarkable here? I mean “Monster draws a line, and it’s a line somewhere in his philosophy and mind…”
Yes, kids, the man who actual tries to do things (instead of just talk about them) has to actual makes decisions that are not perfect (nor backed by definitive answers)… and he even questions them himself (to his credit?) because… wait for it… doing hard things isn’t easy, and involves risks.
Nobody knows where “the line” is… but we all should know by now that we suffer if some elites get to decide that in the dark.
Free speech is essential for liberty. Absolutely free speech appears to be problematic for human civilization (and public safety). Rob Monster has done a better job navigating that than most… and along the way he has helped advance the state of the art of the politics (debate, basis for decision-making, etc) that we all have assigned the difficult task of making such decisions for us.
I often dislike Andrew’s commentary… often. So what. Based on his replies to my comments here over the years, he doesn’t “like” me, either. But if either of us was allowed to make the rules ALONE, the rules would probably not be tolerable to most people.
“Trying to thread the needle on what’s lawful free speech is not an easy task…” — Rob Monset
Kudos to Rob for trying to do hard things, especially when he tries to do them without hurting people.
You’ll only know free speech was necessary when you discover that it was suppressed.
It wasn’t a prayer meeting. He used his prayermeeting platform to host a meeting about the hack.
lol, sure he did.
And if Ozzie hosted a meeting about his next Satanic album in a cave under a Satanic temple, would you be shocked to see blood and tortured creatures everywhere? Really?
If Monster was hosting a discussion where he knew “the Storm Front guy” and “the pedo guys” and “angry leftists”, the “anti-freedom guys”, the “criminal hackers” etc etc would all be showing up, especially at such a difficult time in Monster’s life (I can’t even imagine it, tbh) … it seems to me OF COURSE he’d host in in his chapel, and pause to exercise demons, and pray for their salvation, etc.
Maybe I’m the only one who sees that lol.
I did sort out what happened with TEEVER.com.
– Someone registered TEEEVER.com and started selling counterfeit shirts.
– The owner of the art found out about his art being sold by others and filed a lawsuit, but Godaddy sent me a lawsuit against ShirtCent.com. It had ShirtCent.com evidence that did not show the URL. Hmmm
– TEEVER.com was put on suspension hold lock.
– I phone and emailed the lawyer, and Godaddy. Godaddy just resent me the same info, and the lawyer refused to respond.
– I contacted ICANN. I put in a complaint, or something with ICANN. I have not heard back yet.
– after weeks of trying to get some information about what must be a mistake, I contacted the client. After contacting the client the lawyer started communicating with me.
– The lawyer sent me the evidence about TEEEVER.com.
I have been down for weeks because either the lawyer or Godaddy or both made an error. I still waiting to hear back from ICANN.
I still may not have even seen the correct documents. I do know that the client alleges I owe him $13,000 but they will take $50,000.
I do not even know if I have the correct suit to defend myself against, or if I am really named.
This very difficult to deal with. I was in a car roll over accident in December 2021, and am still recovering.
Does anyone know how to make crowd funding work?