David Gerard, Shock Site Proprietor Options

[tarantino]

Warning, the websites listed below are not work safe, and may be considered offensive by many people.


David Gerard, anti-censor spokesman and model Wikipedian, said on February 22 this year -

wefixtech.co.uk is a virtual private server. It just got wiped by an idiot at the hosting company. So davidgerard.co.uk, [and several other personal sites listed] are down until they can recover from the February 17th backup. Good thing we got shot of the actual paying customers and it's now strictly our toy.

What does he do with that toy? Why, host the notorious lemonparty.org along with a dozen other lesser known shock sites such as thewillpower.org, yourmom.org and k-k-k.com.

Asked whois.pir.org:43 about lemonparty.org
lemonparty.org = [ 69.65.107.209 ]
Name Server: NS1.WEFIXTECH.CO.UK
Name Server: NS2.WEFIXTECH.CO.UK

Asked whois.nic.uk:43 about wefixtech.co.uk
wefixtech.co.uk = [ 69.65.107.209 ]
Name servers:
ns1.wefixtech.co.uk
ns2.wefixtech.co.uk

Note the wefixtech registrant is not Gerard, but a (former?) business partner.

David Gerard, just the sort of guy to represent WP in the press.

[tarantino]

I'd like to revive this thread to bring it to the attention of the several arbs who currently visit WR.

In this LJ post, Gerard states that wefixtech.co.uk is a virtual private server and is "now strictly our toy."

A list of some of the other domains hosted on that private server can be found at heyya.org . Whois results will confirm this. Heyya is safe, but I would strongly recommend against following any of the links listed there. The sites are meant to shock and offend.

That one of the most trusted volunteers at Wikipedia, who is also a WMF press contact, seems comfortable in associating with such content reflects very poorly on WP/WMF.

[Somey]

...I would strongly recommend against following any of the links listed there. The sites are meant to shock and offend.

That one of the most trusted volunteers at Wikipedia, who is also a WMF press contact, seems comfortable in associating with such content reflects very poorly on WP/WMF.

Y'know, I don't think we've ever came up with a satisfactory answer to the question of why Dave does this sort of thing, have we?

I mean, "because shocking and offending people is fun" might explain it, but you'd think the novelty would wear off after, say, the first two or three websites.

He doesn't make money doing this, does he? Does anyone know if any of these sites take donations?

[tarantino]

...I would strongly recommend against following any of the links listed there. The sites are meant to shock and offend.

That one of the most trusted volunteers at Wikipedia, who is also a WMF press contact, seems comfortable in associating with such content reflects very poorly on WP/WMF.

Y'know, I don't think we've ever came up with a satisfactory answer to the question of why Dave does this sort of thing, have we?

I mean, "because shocking and offending people is fun" might explain it, but you'd think the novelty would wear off after, say, the first two or three websites.

He doesn't make money doing this, does he? Does anyone know if any of these sites take donations?

There are referral links to pay sites. I haven't closely reviewed all the source code, and have scripts and images turned off when visiting them. Heyya is on a separate server but it loads a hidden iframe from Gerard's server that contains javascript linking to adultfriendfinder. *
The actual shock site domain owners are obscured by anonymized registrations, so it's possible they're owned by an acquaintance. Even if that is the case, he has root access and knows what's what.

*edit: I suppose this could make it not so safe, so it would be better to turn off scripting if you should decide to visit.

2nd edit: lemonparty is actually "tame" in comparison to most of the others. Also searching for heyya shows quite of few other related domains that are now expired.

This post has been edited by tarantino: Fri 23rd January 2009, 3:28am