Varka: Sean Piche with Money

[Conan]

76TB of storage. http://yfrog.com/h0d0vcjj anyone wanna hazard a guess as to how much of it is going to be used to store porn?

I went on Newegg and threw together a shopping cart of what's on the table. There seems to be 4 more of each type of drive in the picture, but let's ignore those.


And I'm presuming there's more stuff somewhere, since there are enough HDD's there to fill that server twice.

It's worth noting that FA has managed to store nearly 2TB of porn over the course of six years. 76TB is probably enough to store all the furry porn ten times.

[Freehaven]

Nobody needs that much storage space except major content storage companies/organizations and Bill Gates' personal AI construct.

[Jim Demintia]

So does he really make that kind of scratch selling giant, overpriced animal-penis-shaped pieces of latex or do mommy and daddy kick in a little? Or is he just putting that on his 20% APR Capital One card?

Oh, and by the way: if you make your money in porn, have fun with that- cuz that's where you are for life. There are few things more toxic on a resume than porn industry experience.

[Conan]

So does he really make that kind of scratch selling giant, overpriced animal-penis-shaped pieces of latex or do mommy and daddy kick in a little? Or is he just putting that on his 20% APR Capital One card?

Oh, and by the way: if you make your money in porn, have fun with that- cuz that's where you are for life. There are few things more toxic on a resume than porn industry experience.

Bad Dragon is at least profitable enough that they can rent out a small warehouse for "manufacturing" and own their own large 3D printers.

Also, this server is probably the storage portion of this. In addition, he apparently owns another similar server.

[Jim Demintia]

So basically he's buying this stuff to show off. Because I really doubt he has anything productive to do, or indeed even knows how to utilize, 24 cores.

So do we know what he does as a day job? His twitter has words like "computer scientist" and "roboticist" in it, but I find it unlikely that he's got legitimate employment in a profession like that and runs this insanely profitable animal dildo business on the side.

Sorry, but everything about this guy is seedy. He's gotta be involved in drugs or something like that, I just don't see that kind of money adding up otherwise. Conspicuous consumption is one thing; nine thousand dollars on hard drives and three-dozen-core computers take that to a whole new level.

I know there's "money" in adult toys and porn and stuff, if you do it right- mostly because of price gouging- but not THAT kind of money.

Edit: Flipping through his Twitter, it looks like he's running e621 on the 24-core box. Maybe more; but at some point you become I/O-bound, and unless I'm wildly wrong about current technology- it happens well before you fully utilize 24 CPUs.

Really you can only use that kind of parallelism on some kinds of scientific computing. You sure can't justify it as a fucking web/database server.

I also see at least once he mentions that people are still complaining about the lack of response to e621 takedown notices. I seem to remember the prediction here was that he'd change that, since his business, such as it is, relies on good relations with artists.

[Conan]

Oh look.

http://yfrog.com/hsg8wqfj

Another one. :I

[rodox_video]

Sorry, but everything about this guy is seedy. He's gotta be involved in drugs or something like that, I just don't see that kind of money adding up otherwise.

He used to work for Doug Spink, that's pretty fucking seedy right there. There are also some fairly predictable rumors about certain other people on the Bad Dragon payroll.

[Jim Demintia]

So looking at that post, I remember the mention of Cryptocloud, and that sort of thing immediately brings to mind the whole Anonymous scene as well as various BitTorrent sites- some of which I would imagine are tied to organized cybercrime.

I am getting so fucking tired of hearing about "cybersecurity" and the attendant gold rush around it- the burnt-out IT professionals trying to make themselves relevant to today's world, the worthless certifications, and so on- but it's there for a reason. I've been saying for a while now it is a matter of time before the mother of all hacks happens to a household name (i.e. Gmail) and makes the PSN thing look like your 10 year old brother guessed your screensaver password. Anyway, point being- I wonder, indeed, what one would do with all that expensive computer equipment?

For no reason in particular I think it's worth pointing out that brute-force key searching is pretty easily parallelized.

[Conan]

This should put the income of Bad Dragon in perspective. http://yfrog.com/kie9zoj

[Jim Demintia]

Ok, so I don't think anyone here buys the "76TB of porn" line. Or that 24 cores are needed for e621. What the hell is he doing/going to do with that stuff?

[Conan]

Adding this because it's relevant: They talk about their "workshop" a lot, but there's no records of where it is (Business registration points to a UPS Store, the registered agent is a residence), their whois and MSDS documents provide a phone number that seems to be unlisted and serves no specific area. And in regards to visitors, the BD FA says "because it's an industrial business location we can't have anyone that isn't affiliated with BD over." which is interesting as I've personally been on tours of "industrial business locations" without hassle.

[MazelTovCocktail]

Sorry, but everything about this guy is seedy. He's gotta be involved in drugs or something like that, I just don't see that kind of money adding up otherwise.

He used to work for Doug Spink, that's pretty fucking seedy right there.

That's almost a guarantee that he either is or was sitting on dirty money.

With all the speculation about Doug, I can't help but think that anybody employed by him was involved in trafficking of either drugs or animal sex.  There are enough claims that he didn't really make all his money selling fitness catalogs that it's hard not to believe them.

(EDIT: Didn't see until now that Varka was only involved with Doug's VPN service.  Still, it's Doug Spink.  The guy's as shady as the day is long.  Unless Varka wasn't employed by him very long or never dealt with him personally, he had to at least have his suspicions about the guy.)

[loki]

Ok, so I don't think anyone here buys the "76TB of porn" line. Or that 24 cores are needed for e621. What the hell is he doing/going to do with that stuff?

Is the 24-core box a blade server? Or is it something with 12 logical CPUs + HT? Regardless of what it is, it sounds like cock-waving and someone trying to pretend they're playing with the big-boys. Hell, I don't even think he might have gotten money through illegal means. He could just be an immense idiot and put it on some credit cards (lol if so, just wow) or done something sketchy like take out a small business loan to buy hardware for his site.

Regardless, it's just another case of someone incompetent buying more than they need.

[Jim Demintia]

Ok, so I don't think anyone here buys the "76TB of porn" line. Or that 24 cores are needed for e621. What the hell is he doing/going to do with that stuff?

Is the 24-core box a blade server? Or is it something with 12 logical CPUs + HT? Regardless of what it is, it sounds like cock-waving and someone trying to pretend they're playing with the big-boys. Hell, I don't even think he might have gotten money through illegal means. He could just be an immense idiot and put it on some credit cards (lol if so, just wow) or done something sketchy like take out a small business loan to buy hardware for his site.

Regardless, it's just another case of someone incompetent buying more than they need.

It's all just so extreme, that it makes you wonder. Yes, Bad Dragon is probably obscenely profitable, but do they really do enough volume that Varka can piss away $8100 for showoff purposes? Yes, he seems like a cock-waver but I would imagine acquiring 76TB worth of hard drives takes effort probably not worth it just to say you did. I guess without really knowing anything I think "the numbers don't add up". But specifics are essentially just speculation.

Moving onto more solid ground, I do notice that he travels a hell of a lot. Not altogether uncommon for furries of lesser means, but he apparently went to E3 and was recently in the British Isles. Somehow I gathered the impression he was living there until I saw the MSDS sheet that Conan linked to- on page 5, I think it was, an address was listed in Phoenix, AZ (which would be an appropriate place for someone like him to live). If you look at his Twitter, I really think he has a hell of a tab with the airlines.

Also, the address in Phoenix is the UPS store but interestingly the emergency contact number on that same MSDS sheet maps to Hereford, AZ, which is a good distance (200 miles) from Phoenix. It is closer to Tucson and actually pretty damn close to the Mexcian border.

[katmouse]

Adding this because it's relevant: They talk about their "workshop" a lot, but there's no records of where it is (Business registration points to a UPS Store, the registered agent is a residence), their whois and MSDS documents provide a phone number that seems to be unlisted and serves no specific area. And in regards to visitors, the BD FA says "because it's an industrial business location we can't have anyone that isn't affiliated with BD over." which is interesting as I've personally been on tours of "industrial business locations" without hassle.

Not that I'm defending him in any way, but given what bad dragon makes at said workshop, keeping the address off the radar is a fairly sound idea.  The last thing he would want are adoring fans or picketing protesters being able to find his workshop via google maps.  It wouldn't hurt if his neighbors don't know that right next store animal dildos are being fabbed either.  The BS line about not having having guests sounds a bit nicer to the fans than "No! You can't find out where our secret base is!"

[Jim Demintia]

Reeeally doubt protesters give a shit. I'd imagine whatever neighbors he may have probably are already aware something weird is going on wherever it is.

Fans? Are they really that popular?

Idk, I have this weird notion that people have shit to do with their time. I know that isn't true of everyone but it's true of most people.

[Spip]

Bad Dragon is at least profitable enough that they can rent out a small warehouse for "manufacturing" and own their own large 3D printers.

Are the latter used to make the product? Given how jaggedy the 3D-printed product I've seen is, that sounds amazingly uncomfortable.

[Blazer]

Sorry, but everything about this guy is seedy. He's gotta be involved in drugs or something like that, I just don't see that kind of money adding up otherwise.

He used to work for Doug Spink, that's pretty fucking seedy right there.

That's almost a guarantee that he either is or was sitting on dirty money.

With all the speculation about Doug, I can't help but think that anybody employed by him was involved in trafficking of either drugs or animal sex.  There are enough claims that he didn't really make all his money selling fitness catalogs that it's hard not to believe them.

(EDIT: Didn't see until now that Varka was only involved with Doug's VPN service.  Still, it's Doug Spink.  The guy's as shady as the day is long.  Unless Varka wasn't employed by him very long or never dealt with him personally, he had to at least have his suspicions about the guy.)

Varka was an administrator on Baneki forums where Doug constantly mentioned his sexual activities with animals and there was about half a dozen animal porn threads pinned, as well as numerous links to the bestiality tracker he owned. Varka also mentioned that Doug was a friend of his, so there is no question as to whether he knew about Doug's shady activities.

[Blazer]

Moving onto more solid ground, I do notice that he travels a hell of a lot. Not altogether uncommon for furries of lesser means, but he apparently went to E3 and was recently in the British Isles. Somehow I gathered the impression he was living there until I saw the MSDS sheet that Conan linked to- on page 5, I think it was, an address was listed in Phoenix, AZ (which would be an appropriate place for someone like him to live). If you look at his Twitter, I really think he has a hell of a tab with the airlines.

Varka's personal address (along with the other main staff members) is listed on the Arizona state website for companies.

http://starpas.azcc.gov/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=wsbroker1/names-detail.p?name-id=F15438049&type=CORPORATION

[Jim Demintia]

What's with the Scottish/Dutch person listed as the President? That would explain (?) his recent trip over there, or it'd at least make more sense that way.