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Exposed Email Logs Show 8kun Owner in Contact With QAnon Influencers and Enthusiasts
January 7, 2021
8chan
8kun
A mail server vulnerability has publicly exposed more than a year’s worth of email logs, as well as highlighted security and infrastructure issues, faced by the administrators and maintainers of controversial websites such as 8kun.
The logs, which were publicly visible before the vulnerability was patched last month, show thousands of email contacts made by 8kun administrators as well as by an address that appears to belong to 8kun owner Jim Watkins.
While it is possible to see who is emailing who and when in the logs, it is not possible to view the contents of emails.
The logs show admin accounts for the likes of 8kun and “Is It Wet Yet” (IIWY), the parent company of 8kun which is also owned by Watkins, engaging with a variety of email addresses. Many appear to show internal communications but others show contacts with apparent commercial partners and a variety of outside addresses. There are also one-off contacts with at least two law enforcement agencies.
Separately, Watkins’ email address, which was used to respond to questions regarding this article, can be seen in contact with a number of avid QAnon conspiracy enthusiasts, including one who appears to be a contract specialist in a role with the US Army. Further contacts with Q influencers with far larger followings are visible in the logs as well, although these appear to be more limited in number.
In total, the logs revealed 2,664 mail events sent from 30 addresses, that are part of Watkins’ companies, to 665 other email addresses. More than 1,100 of the mails logged came from Watkins’ own address.
The vulnerability also exposed things such as config directories, which contain details of how private data on the likes of the 8kun website is stored. Error logs, meanwhile, revealed things like SQL commands, session credentials, IP addresses and directory details on 8kun.
Although 8kun, which was previously known as 8chan, has long been known to host anonymous forums riddled with racist, neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic content as well as posts that encourage and celebrate mass shootings, it has more recently become home to the QAnon conspiracy The false and baseless theory posits that secret and satanic pedophile cabals are running the US and that a high level official known as Q is leaking information about the battle to stop these secretive, deep state groups on 8kun. Despite lacking any basis in fact, the Q conspiracy has spread across the US and beyond. QAnon adherents were pictured inside the US Senate after right-wing protesters stormed the US Capitol on January 6 and it has previously been linked with a number of violent incidents.
Yet the identity of the person or people posting on 8kun as Q for now, remains a mystery. Some, including the original founder of 8chan who has since turned against it, Frederick Brennan, have speculated that Watkins could himself be acting as Q or would at least be able to find out Q’s real identity, although Watkins has long denied this. Previous media reports, meanwhile, have suggested Watkins could be facilitating QAnon community hubs.
In an emailed response to this article, Watkins said: “I am not Qanon and don’t identify as such. That is a keyword on twitter [sic]. I am also not Q.”
A video published online shortly after a request for comment regarding this article was made last month appeared to show Watkins discussing the logs and stating that there was nothing of note in his emails. The video also contained a promotion for 8kun and Q face masks.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/01/07/exposed-email-logs-show-8kun-owner-in-contact-with-qanon-influencers-and-enthusiasts/
The vulnerable log directories were posted on the 420chan image board, as well as on Twitter, by Aubrey Cottle, the reported co-founder of Anonymous and 420chan. Cottle has declared war on QAnon, which he recently told Gizmodo was “warping minds around the world.”
Cottle discovered that Is It Wet Yet (IIWY) — a company founded, owned and operated by Watkins and which ultimately controls 8kun and other websites — was publicly exposing more than four Roundcube mail server logs it hosts and administers.
The authors of this article were able to confirm the public nature of logs due to the unpatched version of Roundcube the IIWY mail server was running. This bug is detailed in CVE-2015-5383 and was patched by Roundcube in version 1.1.2.
In response to the exposed logs, Watkins said it seems “there was a vulnerability in the Roundcube email server that I was using and I suspect thousands of other companies as well. Instead of reporting this vulnerability, I was stalked by the individual you will use as your source,” in probable reference to Cottle. Watkins continued that these logs likely impacted thousands of other companies but were released in order to “embarrass me and some of my friends and people that have emailed me.” This was not something “that should be encouraged,” he added, as well as stating he had reported the matter. Watkins also stated that the last time Bellingcat reported on him it led to people he knew being hurt, although he did not specify what reports he was referring to. The full response, which Watkins also posted to Twitter, can be seen here.
Although the exposed logs and vulnerabilities were only recently found, the date range contained in the emails would seem to imply that the exposure existed when 8kun was administered by Jim Watkins’ son, Ron.
Ron announced he was no longer 8kun admin earlier this year and has since gone on to peddle conspiracies about the results of the US election and framed himself as a technical expert. One of his recent appearances on the right-wing OANN news channel where he spoke about alleged election fraud was retweeted by President Donald Trump. We reached out to Ron Watkins for this article via Twitter direct message but did not receive a response before publication.Mail Servers aren’t supposed to be public
Verifying the email logs was possible by reaching out to some of those contained within them. One email exchange showed Jim Watkins’ email address in touch with a reporter at HuffPo and their corrections inbox.
We asked the reporter who appeared to be involved in this correspondence if they could confirm the emails, which they did — an email was sent from Watkins to the corrections inbox at the time noted in the mail log on 25 October 2019. Bizarrely, the email contained a scrawled letter from Watkins on what appears to be parchment with Roman glyphs for the date. A tweet showing this letter was published on the IIWY Twitter account while Watkins also appeared to post a video of himself writing the letter on YouTube. We further followed up with a journalist with CNET whose email address appeared in the logs. They also confirmed to us they had been in contact with this email on the IIWY servers on the date detailed.
https://www.logically.ai/articles/exclusive-failed-screenwriter-from-new-jersey-behind-one-of-qanons-most-influential-personas
Logically has identified another prolific QAnon player –the pseudonym “Neon Revolt” is linked to Robert Cornero Jr. of Neptune City, New Jersey. After a failed attempt to become a screenwriter in Studio City, CA, he returned home with disdain for Hollywood and embraced QAnon.
On January 6, former 8kun administrator Ron Watkins reached out to a major QAnon influencer via Twitter to help him disseminate a message ahead of the Stop the Steal protests in Washington D.C., a gathering that ended with rioters storming the Capitol building, which in turn resulted in five deaths and many more arrests. Watkins, who had recently been at the forefront in pushing conspiracy theories implicating Dominion Voting Systems in specious allegations of election fraud, yet again claimed to have access to sensational information he wished to share as widely as possible, something he would now refer to as his MOABs (mother of all bombs).
The QAnon influencer in question operates under the handle “Neon Revolt”. Often overlooked given his absence from Twitter, Neon Revolt heads the largest QAnon community on the conservative and extremist-friendly social media site Gab and has, along with Gab CEO Andrew Torba, played a major role in getting QAnon supporters to migrate to the platform. A recent 8kun email leak reported by Bellingcat also shows frequent exchanges between Neon Revolt and 8kun owner Jim Watkins….