Denis PETROV from New York is the owner of archive.today. PETROV was fully identified as: NAME: Denis A. PETROV DOB: 07/##/1971 (52) SSN: 124-86-#### ADDRESS: 301 E. 75th St, Apt 4E, New York, NY 10021 PHONE: 917-923-7935 E-mail:
[email protected]
Denis PETROV works as a Senior Software Engineer at Elephant Ventures LLC (https://www.elephantventures.com ) and noted that it is a Delaware company with offices in several states.
But in front of this respectable facade Denis PETROV leads a double life. A dark life, made of distribution of pedophile photos, photos of torture, photos of real rape, promotion and referencing of drug sales sites, multiple perjury in DMCA, violation of individual image and legal rights of authorship, and extortion. Denis PETROV is the owner of the controversial site https://archive.today. Also known by multiple mirror domain names: https://archive.today https://archive.ph https://archive.is https://archive.li https://archive.vn https://archive.fo https://archive.md You will find the complete history of this site here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today
But behind this storefront is hidden hundreds of child pornography photos, drug sales links and links to real torture and rape content. Denis PETROV actually manages a showcase of all the most horrible things the Dark Web can offer. Furthermore, Denis PETROV never respects copyright withdrawal requests and steals the personal data of thousands of people. Hundreds of victims are desperately trying to have content stolen from them deleted, some victims are overwhelmed by Revenge Porn and harassment but Denis PETROV doesn't care. And he trades in it. After a year and a half of investigation, here is all the evidence that proves that Denis PETROV is the owner of archive.today.
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1. The trail of the who.is: First, we looked at the archive.is website, where references to mail.ru in the source code suggest a Russian connection to the site's owner. Our Russian-speaking partner says that mistakes in English are typically Slavic. And other post shows that he speaks Russian fluently. The who.is of domains such as “archive.is” and “archive.vn”, which requires putting a real unmasked who.is leads to a “Denis Petrov”, between 2013 and 2018. Who.is 2013 archive.is: https://www.isnic.is/en/whois/search?query=archive.is Who.is 2018 archive.vn: https://whois.inet.vn/whois?domain=archive.vn
So we have a name and an address: Denis PETROV Address: Bílkova 16, Prague, 11000, CZ Tel. +420 775 168 924
After having commissioned a private detective to check the address in Czechia, he confirmed to us that there was no Denis PETROV on the mailboxes. This appears to be a fake address or an empty shell.
Registering with a false name on who.is would mean taking the risk of having domain names cut off, which is not compatible with the desire to set up a long-term project, so there is a strong chance that Denis PETROV is the real name of the owner.
We do a search with the phone number on https://epieos.com/ and we find a match with a Denis PETROV Google account, an account which has disappeared today…
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2. Verification of Denis PETROV’s name and email address search
We found quite quickly in web archives and social networks, several screen copies of emails signed “Denis” and where the interlocutor begins their email with “Hi Denis”:
There is no longer any doubt “Denis” is his real first name, because the registrars and hosts who have his real identity call him “Denis”! In addition we collect the following email addresses:
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] All these email addresses belong to Denis, owners of archive.is or archive.today. It will be useful to us later. We also note that Denis has been receiving complaints for years and does not hesitate to lie to escape complaints from registrars, such as when he claims to have a contract with Europol.
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3. The Donations buttons on the archive.is site:
On the Archive.is homepage, there is a “Donate” button leading to: https://en.liberapay.com/archiveis We call on a private detective specializing in “OSINT” research – open source intelligence, and here is his report: The Librapay website describes the site and mentions the owner's accounts, including a Github and a Twitter account: https://github.com/conferno https://twitter.com/archiveis
(Old page above, new version below)
The Twitter account is active but not very informative.
The Github link leads to a 404 error, indicating the the page no longer exists. But a cached version of this Github page reveals that “Conferno” is involved in two projects: Archive.is and btdig.com.
Searching for “Conferno” in search engines reveals: - "Conferno" has no direct meaning. - It's not a word in a specific language. - It is primarily used as a username by two people: An American Twitch streamer and a Russian developer who uses it on social media, calling themselves "Alex/Alexander Conferno".
Given previous indications of archive.is' ties to Russia, Alexander Conferno is likely a subject of research. Alexander Conferno has an extensive digital footprint: https://www.instagram.com/conferno/ https://www.twitter.com/conferno https://vimeo.com/conferno https://conferno.me/ https://soundcloud.com/conferno https://www.behance.net/Conferno https://www.artstation.com/conferno https://twitter.com/conferno https://conferno.deviantart.com/ https://dribbble.com/tags/conferno https://m.youtube.com/@Conferno https://www.reddit.com/user/conferno/ https://www.youtube.com/@alexanderconferno9467 https://vk.com/conferno On all platforms, he uses the pseudonym “conferno”. Knowing that "Conferno" is not a Russian word nor his last name, we looked up his real last name. His social media and other platforms do not reveal his real name. But He is known as "Alex or Alexander Conferno" professionally.
By searching breached databases, we found "Conferno" associated with various email addresses and accounts of Alex Conferno. https://Linkedin.com/in/alexander-conferno-48624052 < A (deleted) LinkedIn page with the location Saint Petersburg. And an old company email: email:
[email protected] Name: Alexandre Conferno city: Saint Petersburg country: Russia He used the name "conferno" at Cuberto, a US-based digital product agency, a company he worked for. This private email address was also found: nuclé
[email protected] Further investigation into this email address reveals his real name, date of birth and the city used. During registration. This information was found in the data breach of a Hong Kong clothing retailer site leaked in 2018. Date of birth was revealed in another registration using this email address. Name : Alexandre Petrov Address: Cheboksary CHUVASHIA 428000 Other email addresses belonging to Alexander Conferno: nuclé
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] nuclé
[email protected] nuclé
[email protected] [email protected] nuclé
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] A search for the name “Alexander Petrov” led to a LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-petrov-48624052/ > Claiming to be from Tbilisi, Georgia, since 2012. During our research, we discovered in 2012 on the F-Secure forum that someone noted that F-Secure had reported their website "http://archive.is" for "harmful behavior": https://community.f-secure.com/en/discussion/14768/what-is-the-evidence-ofharmfulbehaviour#M3733
This person's name is Masha Rabinovich. A Google search for "Masha Rabinovich" a YouTube channel sharing a video on archive.is: https://www.youtube.com/@4723984621
Video which is itself published on the Twitter of “Archive.today”. Search for 'Masha Rabinovich' in breached databases revealed (deleted) LinkedIn account: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/masha-rabinovich-a4224a1a) Esername: masha-rabinovich-a4224a1a E-mail:
[email protected] Name : Macha Rabinovitch Address : St. Petersburg, Russia Interestingly, just like Alexander Conferno's deleted LinkedIn account, St. Petersburg is also listed. The LinkedIn account has been registered with the email address:
[email protected] And this estate is familiar, because it belongs to Denis Petrov: https://www.whois.com/whois/camfex.cz
A thorough search in different databases for emails ending with @camfex.cz yielded:
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
And also:
[email protected] This connects Denis, Masha and Alex (Conferno?). There is no indication that Alex and Masha are real people; it is more likely that they are pseudonyms of the site owner. Although it is not 100% certain that Denis Petrov is actually behind the website, there are many clues pointing in his direction, and it does not appear to be a coincidence. Remember about @camfex.cz, we noticed that this email was used by the Registards to communicate with “Denis”! A new search in WayBackmachine confirms the connections: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708213147/https://github.com/conferno Confermo's Github account shows ownership of Archive.today in the "organization" tab.
This confirms that Conferno, Denis Alex, Masha are the same person, Denis PETROV from archive.is.
**
Let's continue our investigation into the archive.is donation button: We go back in time using the Wayback Machine (archive.org - official archive site recognized by the American government) to explore the donation button on archive.is, hoping to find some leads. In January 2020 he asked for donations with a Paypal account: https://web.archive.org/web/20201230010706/http://archive.is/ https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=GXJEALW52BCJ4
In September 2020, he appeared to be having issues with his Paypal account. Complaints sent to PayPal by victims causes it some trouble. He urgently created another Paypal account with the name Denis PETROV! https://web.archive.org/web/20200911142025/https://archive.is/ https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_sxclick&hosted_button_id=RSCFSJ2SAZJL8&source=url&ssrt=1707591591837
We decided to test this Paypal donation page to find out more, by sending 5 dollars, and That's it! Paypal Denis PETROV is registered under the address of:
[email protected]
PayPal verifies identities, now there is no doubt. We have confirmation that Denis PETROV is his real name. It goes to show that urgency and the lure of profit often make us make mistakes. Besides, the button disappears very quickly...
** We keep going back in time, from the donate button, to find an amazing thing: Until 2016, the archive.is donation button redirects to an animal aid association in New York: https://web.archive.org/web/20140723052310/http://archive.today/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151224040437/https://archive.is/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161218020619/https://archive.is/ Donation link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140930085118/https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/4oAq0 New York Association: https://www.animalnation.org https://fundrazr.com/profiles/animal-nation-inc
We are investigating this association further. We came into contact with an animal rights activist (who is a victim of Archive Today) who told us, all without exception, that it is a small association unknown to the general public and can only be known locally… That in all of her over a decade of working with hundreds of organizations and being involved in animal rights she never heard of this tiny organization until she started to investigate Archive Today and Denis Petrov. Only a local would know of this organization. Why would Denis PETROV from the Czech Republic of Russian origin make donations to an animal rights/sanctuary association in New York unknown to the general public? Strange, right?
**
4. On the trail of Denis PETROV from New York. Let’s recap the information. We now know with certainty that: - Denis PETROV is his real name and first name - He is Russian - Speaks Russian and English fluently - He does not live in Prague (CZ) but probably in the United States - He is a talented programmer - He has participated in many projects under several pseudonyms but all point to archive.is - It is around fifty years old, in view of the age of the domain names - He is connected to New York through a small local association. We hired a private detective from New York to do research, and That's it! He finds a Denis PETROV in New York who matches the profiles! Russian, senior programmer, 52 years old… Everything matches. NAME: Denis A. PETROV DOB: 07/##/1971 (52) SSN: 124-86-#### ADDRESS: 301 E. 75th St, Apt 4E, New York, NY 10021 PHONE: 917-923-7935 https://www.linkedin.com/in/denispetrov
We collect the following data: Email:
[email protected] https://238pro.com/ https://shivaveena.com/ And his resume: Denis Petrov Resume.pdf
We now have a suspect! Let’s dig deeper to find evidence of connections and test this hypothesis.
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We do a search on Crunchbase.com and find this: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/archive-is An organization called Archive.today from 2012 listed in New York!
** We do a new search on https://epieos.com with the Email address:
[email protected] and we find the account on github.com belonging to Denis PETROV: https://github.com/quietcat
In the Popular repositories we find “vault-init” and in the Achievements we find: Arctic Code Vault Contributor @quietcat contributed code to 1 repository in the 2020 GitHub Archive Program. And Denis PETROV from New York seems passionate about creating web archives. Does “Vault” remind you of anything? Denis PETROV of archive.is uses the email address
[email protected] to communicate under the identity of the webmaster of archive.is.
Now let's go back and dig on the Volth side, we find its old Github account, now deleted: http://web.archive.org/web/20201020033205/https://github.com/volth We find exactly the same badge: Arctic Code Vault Contributor.
** Now let's compare the technical skills between Volth and Denis PETROV from New York in more depth. Volth : According to the analysis of the Volth account on Github, we can say that he is a senior engineer, his account was created in 2010, and he has participated in many projects that require many skills not only in programming languages but also in the technical part. According to his profile and his projects, he knows NIX, Perl, C++, C, Go, Java, Python, Shell, Javascript, Scala. Volth speaks Russian, the proof is on his site: https://github.com/TinkoffCreditSystems/invest-openapi/issues/278 The conferno profile on Github which is also deleted, we find skills C++, Go, Scala, … Conferno, Volth – both accounts participated in Project Nix: https://web.archive.org/web/20200910213518/https://github.com/conferno/nixpkgs
By searching on a big site habr.com for his profile. We found denispetrov.ru which was created in 2013. We see that this profile has subscribed to languages that we have already seen like nix, Perl, Scala, etc... And also to Prolog (which is not not a popular language, few programmers practice it).
If we analyze the two sites on the Wayback Machine denispetrov.ru and denispetrov.com, we find interesting skills, such as Prolog: https://web.archive.org/web/20221005102459/http://denispetrov.ru/
For Prolog you need math skills, math skills that can also be found at volth. https://web.archive.org/web/20201018004907/https://github.com/volth/intmath.
By analyzing its second site which has existed since 2002: https://web.archive.org/web/20041130154149/http://denispetrov.com/
We see that Denis Petrov from New York is not a simple programmer but also a competent mathematical technician: https://web.archive.org/web/20050412152215/http://www.denispetrov.com/pvm/index.htm
On his blogs he talks about Eclipse, we see in his categories Text::Templet and Voice Monitor. Projects he has worked on: https://web.archive.org/web/20060228040258/http://www.denispetrov.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070217031525/http://www.denispetrov.com/?page_id=4 https://web.archive.org/web/20150809022811/http://denispetrov.com/
Here we find his Tascam 238 project and his site 238.pro The profiles and technical skills of Denis PETROV and Volth are therefore very similar and have participated in several joint projects.
** We found in an old Russian blog from 2010 belonging to Denis PETROV : https://web.archive.org/web/20220104023413/http://denispetrov.ru/2010/03/22/rabota-s-excel-vjava/#comments Where, He says a comment from 2013: К сожалению, литературы посоветовать не могу. Сам уже почти год как не пишу на java. Сменил сферу специализации. Translation : Unfortunately, I cannot recommend the literature. I haven't written Java for almost a year now. Change of area of specialization.
We know from all the information presented here that the “Archive.today” site began to be developed in 2012, so Denis PETROV has actually changed his field of specialization for 1 year… Another disturbing correspondence …
Another old site belonging to Denis PETROV http://www.denispetrov.com/ found in the Web archive.today it redirects to https://shivaveena.com/ , an Indian music site that we find on its Linkedin.
This site confirms several elements: Some photos of Central Park in New York: https://web.archive.org/web/20080422020236/http://www.denispetrov.com/ So, this Denis Petrov lives in New York.
In 2004 demonstrated a particularly feminist societal sensitivity by writing on his blog:(https://web.archive.org/web/20041130154149/http://denispetrov.com/) : Nov 3, 2004
Bummer! Mr. Bush didn't lose. I guess we better get prepared for years of war, uncertainty and worrying about multitude of issues from women's rights to climate change. Now I know for a fact that there is no happy place on this Earth. Everywhere the greedy, the hypocrite and the narrow-minded spoil the honeypot. Is being an asshole really so much fun? Volth also participated in a feminist project on Github: https://web.archive.org/web/20201028150723/https://github.com/volth/c-plus-equality
“A project of the Feminist Software Foundation. Feminist software is a cornerstone of any modern free society. We build this foundation. »
Yet another new similarity between Volth and Denis PETROV from New York. Note that it is still surprising to drape oneself in feminist virtue when for 10 years he has left hundreds of online photos of women harassed and violated on his archive.is site. For someone who claims to defend women's rights, we have seen better. All this is definitely just a facade.
** 5. Confrontation with Denis PETROV from New York
At this stage of the investigation we are 100% sure that Denis PETROV from New York is the owner of the Archive.is and Archive.today sites. With the help of our victims group we sent several complaints to Denis PETROV from New York to his email address. And also to Denis PETROV of archive.is. We sent in both English and Russian. We receive a response within 24 hours from both sides every time. We note that the syntax and style are identical. Note also that he responds in both Russian and English and that the response time zones correspond to New York on both sides. On the side of “Denis Archive” a compassionate introduction in the first paragraph, to finish, on a paragraph with a mush of arguments to say: that it will not erase anything. On the side of “Denis New York” a little compassionate introduction in the first paragraph, to finish also, with a few sentences explaining that he does not understand what we are talking about...
The answers from Denis PETROV from New York are not clear and vary depending on the interlocutors. Sometimes he says he doesn't understand why he's being contacted, sometimes he says he receives complaints from time to time, and sometimes he says someone has stolen his identity. Why does Denis PETROV, who has been receiving complaints for 10 years, do nothing to stop socalled identity theft? Why does Denis PETROV from New York respond on the one hand that he knows why he receives complaints, and then, in another email, he says that he does not know why he receives complaints...? Now let's seriously confront the words of Denis PETROV from New York: In August 2023, a victim contacted Denis PETROV from New York directly to ask him to delete links resulting from dangerous stalking and harassment, Denis PETROV from New York responds:
The victim then responded with a large explanatory email to tell him why he is connected to Archive.is and Archive.today:
So since August 2023 we have been sure that Denis PETROV from New York knows why the victims think he is the owner of Archive.is and Archive.today. We are questioning our victim group again in order to cross-reference information. In September 2023, a young Russian woman who was a victim of harassment (also) sent an email directly to Denis PETROV from New York to his address found on LinkedIn. Complaint sent in Russian.
And surprise! Denis PETROV from New York responded to her in Russian to tell her: he doesn't understand why she is contacting him! While Denis PETROV from New York has known since August 2023 precisely why the plaintiffs contact!
Denis PETROV from New York is lying. By wanting to cover his tracks too much, Denis PETROV unmasked himself. Now there is no more doubt:
We are 100% sure that Denis PETROV from New York is the owner of Archive.is
BONUS:
This donation page was made for Archive Today. One of the previously mentioned victims Emailed this donation website: https://whydonate.com/en/fundraising/Support-ArchiveToday-development She sent an Email and the website responded quickly confirming that Denis Petrov did indeed make this donation page that not only says Archive Today on it but also Denis Petrov.
