On March 8, 2024, KrebsOnSecurity printed a deep dive on the patron knowledge dealer Radaris, displaying how the unique house owners are two males in Massachusetts who operated a number of Russian language courting providers and affiliate packages, along with a dizzying array of people-search web sites. The topics of that piece are threatening to sue KrebsOnSecurity for defamation except the story is retracted. In the meantime, their legal professional has admitted that the individual Radaris named because the CEO from its inception is a fabricated identification.
Radaris is only one cog in a sprawling community of people-search properties on-line that promote extremely detailed background reviews on U.S. customers and companies. These reviews sometimes embody the topic’s present and former addresses, partial Social Safety numbers, any identified licenses, electronic mail addresses and cellphone numbers, in addition to the identical data for any of their fast kin.
Radaris has a less-than-stellar repute in the case of responding to customers searching for to have their reviews faraway from its numerous people-search providers. That poor repute, mixed with indications that the true founders of Radaris have gone to extraordinary lengths to hide their stewardship of the corporate, was what prompted KrebsOnSecurity to analyze the origins of Radaris within the first place.
On April 18, KrebsOnSecurity obtained a licensed letter (PDF) from Valentin “Val” Gurvits, an legal professional with the Boston Regulation Group, stating that KrebsOnSecurity would face a withering defamation lawsuit except the Radaris story was instantly retracted and an apology issued to the 2 brothers named within the story as co-founders.
That March story labored backwards from the e-mail tackle used to register radaris.com, and charted a formidable array of knowledge dealer corporations created over the previous 15 years by Massachusetts residents Dmitry and Igor Lubarsky (additionally typically spelled Lybarsky or Lubarski). Dmitry goes by “Dan,” and Igor makes use of the identify “Gary.”
These companies included quite a few web sites marketed to Russian-speaking people who find themselves new to the USA, resembling russianamerica.com, newyork.ru, russiancleveland.com, russianla.com, russianmiami.com, and so on. Different domains linked to the Lubarskys included Russian-language courting and grownup web sites, in addition to affiliate packages for his or her worldwide calling card companies.
A thoughts map of varied entities apparently tied to Radaris and the corporate’s co-founders. Click on to enlarge.
The story on Radaris famous that the Lubarsky brothers registered most of their companies utilizing a made-up identify — “Gary Norden,” typically known as Gary Nord or Gary Nard.
Mr. Gurvits’ letter acknowledged emphatically that my reporting was lazy, mean-spirited, and clearly supposed to smear the repute of his purchasers. By the use of instance, Mr. Gurvits stated the Lubarskys have been really Ukrainian, and that the story painted his purchasers in a destructive mild by insinuating that they have been by some means related to Radaris and with vaguely nefarious parts in Russia.
However extra to the purpose, Mr. Gurvits stated, neither of his purchasers have been Gary Norden, and neither had ever held any management positions at Radaris, nor have been they monetary beneficiaries of the corporate in any method.
“Neither of my purchasers is a founding father of Radaris, and neither of my purchasers is the CEOs of Radaris,” Gurvits wrote. “Moreover, presently and going again a minimum of the previous 10 years, neither of my purchasers are (or have been) officers or workers of Radaris. Certainly, neither of them even owns (or ever owned) any fairness in Radaris. In intentional disregard of those details, the Article implies that my purchasers are personally accountable for Radaris’ actions. Due to this fact, you deliberately precipitated all destructive allegations within the Article made with respect to Radaris to be imputed towards my purchasers personally.”
Dan Lubarsky’s Fb web page, simply previous to the March 8 story about Radaris, stated he was from Moscow.
We took Mr. Gurvits’ phrase on the ethnicity of his purchasers, and adjusted the story to take away a single point out that they have been Russian. We did so though Dan Lubarsky’s personal Fb web page stated (till not too long ago) that he was from Moscow, Russia.
KrebsOnSecurity requested Mr. Gurvits to clarify exactly which different particulars within the story have been incorrect, and replied that we’d be joyful to replace the story with a correction if they might display any errors of reality or omission.
We additionally requested specifics about a number of elements of the story, such because the identification of the present Radaris CEO — listed on the Radaris web site as “Victor Ok.” Mr. Gurvits replied that Radaris is and all the time has been primarily based in Ukraine, and that the corporate’s true founder “Eugene L” relies there.
Whereas Radaris has claimed to have workplaces in Massachusetts, Cyprus and Latvia, its web site has by no means talked about Ukraine. Mr. Gurvits has not responded to requests for extra details about the identities of “Eugene L” or “Victor Ok.”
Gurvits stated he had no intention of doing anybody’s reporting for them, and that the Lubarskys have been going to sue KrebsOnSecurity for defamation except the story was retracted in full. KrebsOnSecurity replied that journalists typically face challenges to issues that they report, however it’s greater than uncommon for one who makes a problem to take umbrage at being requested for supporting data.
On June 13, Mr. Gurvits despatched one other letter (PDF) that continued to say KrebsOnSecurity was defaming his purchasers, solely this time Gurvits stated his purchasers could be happy if KrebsOnSecurity simply eliminated their names from the story.
“Finally, my purchasers don’t care what you say about any of the web sites or company entities in your Article, so long as you fully take away my purchasers’ names from the Article and cooperate with my purchasers to have copies of the Article the place my purchasers’ names seem faraway from the Web,” Mr. Gurvits wrote.
MEET THE FAKE RADARIS CEO
The June 13 letter defined that the identify Gary Norden was a pseudonym invented by the Radaris advertising and marketing division, however that neither of the Lubarsky brothers have been Norden.
This was a startling admission, on condition that Radaris has quoted the fictional Gary Norden in press releases printed and paid for by Radaris, and in information media tales the place the corporate is explicitly searching for cash from traders. In different phrases, Radaris has been misrepresenting itself to traders from the start. Right here’s a press launch from Radaris that was printed on PR Newswire in April 2011:
A press launch printed by Radaris in 2011 names the CEO of Radaris as Gary Norden, which was a faux identify made up by Radaris’ advertising and marketing division.
In April 2014, the Boston Enterprise Journal printed a narrative (PDF) about Radaris that extolled the corporate’s speedy development and appreciable buyer base. The story famous that, “thus far, the corporate has raised lower than $1 million from Cyprus-based funding firm Difive.”
“We stay in a world the place data turns into way more broad and way more obtainable each single day,” the Boston Enterprise Journal quoted Radaris’ faux CEO Gary Norden, who by then had by some means been demoted from CEO to vice chairman of enterprise improvement.
A Boston Enterprise Journal story from April 2014 quotes the fictional Radaris CEO Gary Norden.
“We determined there must be a service that permits for ease of monitoring of details about folks,” the faux CEO stated. The story went on to say Radaris was searching for to boost between $5 million and $7 million from traders within the ensuing months.
THE BIG LUBARSKY
In his most up-to-date demand letter, Mr. Gurvits helpfully included resumes for each of the Lubarsky brothers.
Dmitry Lubarsky’s resume states he’s the proprietor of Difive.com, a startup incubator for IT corporations. Recall that Difive is similar firm talked about by the faux Radaris CEO within the 2014 Boston Enterprise Journal story, which stated Difive was the corporate’s preliminary and sole investor.
Difive’s web site in 2016 stated it had workplaces in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Riga (Latvia) and Moscow (nothing in Ukraine). In the meantime, DomainTools.com reviews difive.com was initially registered in 2007 to the fictional Gary Norden from Massachusetts.
Archived copies of the Difive web site from 2017 embody a “Portfolio” web page indexing the entire corporations wherein Difive has invested. That listing, obtainable right here, consists of nearly each “Gary Norden” area identify talked about in my unique report, plus just a few that escaped discover earlier.
Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he was CEO of a folks search firm known as HumanBook. The Wayback machine at archive.org reveals the Humanbook area (humanbook.com) got here on-line round April 2008, when the corporate was nonetheless in “beta” mode.
By August 2008, nonetheless, humanbook.com had modified the identify marketed on its homepage to Radaris Beta. Ultimately, Humanbook merely redirected to radaris.com.
Archive.org’s report of humanbook.com from 2008, simply after its homepage modified to Radaris Beta.
Astute readers might discover that the area radaris.com isn’t amongst the businesses listed as Difive investments. Nonetheless, passive area identify system (DNS) data from DomainTools present that between October 2023 and March 2024 radaris.com was hosted alongside the entire different Gary Norden domains on the Web tackle vary 38.111.228.x.
That tackle vary concurrently hosted each area talked about on this story and within the unique March 2024 report as linked to electronic mail addresses utilized by Gary Norden, together with radaris.com, radaris.ru, radaris.de, difive.com, privet.ru, weblog.ru, comfi.com, phoneowner.com, russianamerica.com, eprofit.com, rehold.com, homeflock.com, humanbook.com and dozens extra. A spreadsheet of these historic DNS entries for radaris.com is offered right here (.csv).
Picture: DomainTools.com
The breach monitoring service Constella Intelligence finds simply two electronic mail addresses ending in difive.com have been uncovered in knowledge breaches through the years: dan@difive.com, and gn@difive.com. Presumably, “gn” stands for Gary Norden.
A search on the e-mail tackle gn@difive.com by way of the breach monitoring service osint.industries reveals this tackle was used to create an account at Airbnb underneath the identify Gary, with the final 4 digits of the account’s cellphone quantity ending in “0001.”
Constella Intelligence finds gn@difive.com was related to the Massachusetts quantity 617-794-0001, which was used to register accounts for “Igor Lybarsky” from Wellesley or Sherborn, Ma. at a number of on-line companies, together with audiusa.com and the designer eyewear retailer luxottica.com.
The cellphone quantity 617-794-0001 additionally seems for a “Gary Nard” person at russianamerica.com. Igor Lubarsky’s resume says he was the supervisor of russianamerica.com.
DomainTools finds 617-794-0001 is linked to registration data for 3 domains, together with paytone.com, a site that Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he managed. DomainTools additionally discovered that quantity on the registration data for trustoria.com, one other main client knowledge dealer that has an atrocious repute, in accordance with the Higher Enterprise Bureau.
Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he was accountable for a number of worldwide telecommunications providers, together with the web site comfi.com. DomainTools says the cellphone quantity linked to that area — 617-952-4234 — was additionally used on the registration data for humanbook.internet/biz/data/mobi/us, in addition to for radaris.me, radaris.in, and radaris.tel.
Two different key domains are linked to that cellphone quantity. The primary is barsky.com, which is the web site for Barsky Property Realty Belief (PDF), an actual property holding firm managed by the Lubarskys. Naturally, DomainTools finds barsky.com additionally was registered to a Gary Norden from Massachusetts. However the group listed within the barsky.com registration data is Comfi Inc., a VOIP communications agency that Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he managed.
The opposite area of notice is unipointtechnologies.com. Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he was the CEO of Wellesley Hills, Mass-based Unipoint Expertise Inc. In 2012, Unipoint was fined $179,000 by the U.S. Federal Communications Fee, which stated the corporate had failed to use for a license to offer worldwide telecommunications providers.
A pandemic help mortgage granted in 2020 to Igor Lybarsky of Sherborn, Ma. reveals he obtained the cash to an entity known as Norden Consulting.
Discover the identify on the recipient of this authorities mortgage for Igor Lybarsky from Sherborn, Ma: Norden Consulting.
PATENTLY REMARKABLE
The 2011 Radaris press launch quoting their faux CEO Gary Norden stated the corporate had 4 patents pending from a staff of laptop science PhDs. In line with the resume shared by Mr. Gurvits, Dan Lubarsky has a PhD in laptop science.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace (PTO) says Dan Lubarsky/Lubarski has a minimum of 9 know-how patents to his identify. The faux CEO press launch from Radaris mentioning its 4 patents was printed in April 2011. By that point, the PTO says Dan Lubarsky had utilized for precisely 4 patents, together with, “System and Technique for a Net-Primarily based Folks Listing.” The primary of these patents, printed in 2009, is tied to Humanbook.com, the corporate Dan Lubarsky based that later modified its identify to Radaris.
If the Lubarskys have been by no means concerned in Radaris, how do they or their legal professional know the within data that Gary Norden is a fiction of Radaris’ advertising and marketing division? KrebsOnSecurity has discovered that Mr. Gurvits is similar legal professional responding on behalf of Radaris in a lawsuit towards the info dealer filed earlier this yr by Atlas Information Privateness.
Mr. Gurvits additionally stepped ahead as Radaris’ legal professional in a category motion lawsuit the corporate misplaced in 2017 as a result of it by no means contested the declare in courtroom. When the plaintiffs advised the choose they couldn’t accumulate on the $7.5 million default judgment, the choose ordered the area registry Verisign to switch the radaris.com area identify to the plaintiffs.
Mr. Gurvits appealed the decision, arguing that the lawsuit hadn’t named the precise house owners of the Radaris area identify — a Cyprus firm known as Bitseller Professional Restricted — and thus taking the area away could be a violation of their due course of rights.
The choose dominated in Radaris’ favor — halting the area switch — and advised the plaintiffs they might refile their criticism. Quickly after, the operator of Radaris modified from Bitseller to Andtop Firm, an entity shaped (PDF) within the Marshall Islands in Oct. 2020. Andtop additionally operates the aforementioned people-search service Trustoria.
Mr. Gurvits’ most-publicized defamation case was a shopper named Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian know-how government whose identify appeared within the Steele File. That doc included a set of salacious, unverified data gathered by the previous British intelligence officer Christopher Steele through the 2016 U.S. presidential marketing campaign on the path of former president Donald Trump’s political rivals.
Gubarev, the pinnacle of the IT providers firm XBT Holding and the Florida internet hosting agency Webzilla, sued BuzzFeed for publishing the Steele file. One of many objects within the file alleged that XBT/Webzilla and affiliated corporations performed a key function within the hack of Democratic Social gathering computer systems within the spring of 2016. The memo alleged Gubarev had been coerced into offering providers to Russia’s fundamental home safety company, referred to as the FSB.
In December 2018, a federal choose in Miami dominated in favor of BuzzFeed, saying the publication was protected by the truthful report privilege, which supplies information organizations latitude in reporting on official authorities proceedings.
Radaris was initially operated by Bitseller Professional Restricted. Who owns Bitseller Professional Restricted? A report (PDF) obtained from the Cyprus enterprise registry reveals this firm lists its director as Pavel Kaydash from Moscow. Mr. Kaydash couldn’t be reached for remark.
