What I know so far:

  • vlemmy is still “up” and intermittently accessible. It is running slow as hell, PLEASE DO NOT VISIT THE INSTANCE as it will likely only slow things down more and make it inaccessible again.

  • Stripe, Librepay, and Github accounts are all closed. Closure date unknown
  • Reddit account still exists and has been messaged
  • No mentions of the instance in Element.io chats but still searching
  • They have almost certainly NOT lost their domain. Who.is historical records show no ownership or nameserver changes.

I have some minor personal details I’ve found that I’ll be deep driving on later, but it’s 1AM EST. I’m heading to bed but will continue on the investigation around 9AM EST.

Update 1PM EST July 9th:

Hi all, I’m working through about 40 different potential leads right now.

Although I need some help! Specifically, I need people who have viewed !kerbalspaceprogram@vlemmy.net to check their browser cache for this image:

https://vlemmy.net/pictrs/image/928b2f95-a37c-4e94-bd70-bc014c8655d4.jpeg

You can do so using one of the following NIrsoft tools:

I’m hoping since it’s a historic image linked to their internet presence that it might generate specific leads.

I’ll update more as things progress.

  • iso@lemy.lolEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Stripe, Librepay, and Github accounts are all closed.

    If this is the case, then it looks like they abandoned it.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nuEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      And people wonder why users flocked to lemmy.world with it’s established, well known admin instead of “just dispersing onto smaller random instances to take advantage of the features of the Fediverse”.

      Look I like decentralisation as much as the next guy but most people can’t or don’t have the time to research the trustworthiness of their local instance and its admin team before signing up.

      We don’t want to put everything in one place, especially seeing as many are still waiting on Ruuds stance on Meta/Threads, bit there is something to be said for a big, reliable general purpose instance to help onboarding.

      • Atiran@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I think it’s natural that there should be a small collection of large, production-class instances that host the vast majority of users. The important point is that there are more than a few, and certainly more than one.

        I also think it is important for instance admins to lay out their plan for how they intend to host and fund an instance if they intend to be production-class.

        We also need some kind of account backup and migration tool so that if an instance goes down, those users can easily recover on another instance.