Nov 18, 2021 11:50:00

Admitting that the CEO of an internet company had illegally obtained an IP address

Amir Golestan , founder and CEO of cloud platform provider Micfo , admitted that he used the company to obtain rare IP addresses by fraudulent means.

Executive Pleads Guilty in Internet Address Fraud Case --WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/executive-pleads-guilty-in-internet-address-fraud-case-11637101781

Gorestan was accused of fraudulently obtaining thousands of IP addresses from the American Registry for Internet Numbers , a non-profit organization that assigns IP addresses for computers to use for Internet communications. Then, on Tuesday, November 16, 2021, a federal court in Charleston, South Carolina denied the charges on behalf of Micfo and pleaded guilty.

According to the prosecution, Mr. Golestan's proceedings were 'the first federal proceedings for fraud related to Internet resources such as IP addresses.' Legal and tech experts have noted Golestan's proceedings as they will set new boundaries in criminal activity in the world of loosely regulated Internet infrastructure.

It has been reported that Micfo has been used by criminals and hackers because it supports a VPN service that allows users to hide their online activity. However, there is no evidence that Golestan was aware of criminal activity such as hacking by Micfo users, so simply saying 'hosting the Internet infrastructure used by criminals' accuses Micfo and Golestan. I couldn't.

However, the situation changes when Golestan admits in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2020 that he had obtained an IP address fraudulently. Due to the limited number of IP addresses, it is possible to buy and sell in the market. According to the prosecution, Mr. Golestan used a fake company and a fictitious person to obtain more IP addresses than required from the Internet registry.

'We used fictitious people to cheat so that no one was victimized,' Golestan told The Wall Street Journal. However, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Golestan's act was illegal and that 'the market value of an illegally acquired IP address is equivalent to 14 million dollars (about 1.6 billion yen).'

And this time, Golestan's pleading could result in him being sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. However, the Wall Street Journal points out that in cases dealing with 'first case law' like this one, the charges can be much lower.

Apart from this, Micfo allegedly used fraudulently obtained IP addresses to track Internet traffic that would normally be untraceable, which is also allegedly illegal. However, federal agents do not claim that Golestan and Micfo were aware of this fact.