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Decoherence Media

@decoherence.media

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Decoherence Media investigates authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods. Website: https://decoherence.media/ Subscribe: https://decoherence.media/#/portal/signup

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 2d

Welcome to Decoherence Media, an independent nonprofit founded by @jennefer.bsky.social and @tristanl.ee that investigates authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods.

Welcome to Decoherence Media!

We're an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit investigating authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods.

decoherence.media

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Explore the Rope Culture data using the interface we’ve developed, hosted on FashyLeaks.com. You can read all of our articles on our website. If you want to support us, you can subscribe or make a U.S. tax-deductible donation.

Decoherence Media

Decoherence Media investigates authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods

decoherence.media

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Larson also claimed that Roof enjoyed an article published in Rope Culture which praised Roof and other mass shooters like Anders Breivik, and that Roof called its author “a very enlightened individual.” We were unable to confirm Larson’s correspondence with Roof.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

The most baffling email is from American pedophila advocate & failed congressional candidate Nathan Larson, who sought support and signatures for a petition to allow white nationalist mass shooter Dylann Roof to run for a seat in congress. Larson died in 2022 while facing child pornography charges.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

The document’s metadata named the author as “FreyH ome,” which matches Frey’s last name. The article submission calls upon fascists to “wage the inner Jihad” through prayer, weightlifting, and abstaining from pornography. The article was never published and the email never replied to.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Travis Frey, a former captain at an ICE detention facility who was identified as an Iron March user in 2019 by @tessowen.bsky.social, submitted an article draft to the Rope Culture email address, called “The Greater Holy War,” and listed his Iron March username: “In Hoc Signo Vinces.”

Screenshot of FashyLeaks page for Iron March user In Hoc Signo Vinces , showing his email address (https://fashyleaks.com/iron-march?tab=users&id=6208)

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

In an email message, a person using the email address [email protected] sent a Word document containing a draft of the article whose metadata attributed authorship to a “Baltrušis Baltrušaitis Lukas.” This name matches a freelance stage technician in Kaunas, Lithuania.

LinkedIn page for Lukas Baltrušis Baltrušaitis

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

“Teliavelis” was a member of the Lithuanian neo-Nazi group Skydas and wrote an article published on Rope Culture. This user registered for Iron March with the email address “[email protected].”

Screenshot of FashyLeaks page for Iron March user Teliavelis, showing his email address (https://fashyleaks.com/iron-march?tab=users&id=10083)

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Hangaard wrote to Gabriel Sohier-Chaput (Zeiger) on Skype, regarding Iron March “we have all the the [sic] material. It is not all deleted. We will rebuild everything.” We were unable to determine how the Iron March and Rope Culture web servers ended up in a publicly available torrent archive.

Screenshot of Skype messages from Mikkel Hangaard and Gabriel Sohier-Chaput (Zeiger) where Hangaard writes “Keep this between us. But we have all the the [sic] material. It is not all deleted. We will rebuild everything. But, without slavros”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Natt registered his Iron March account using the email address “[email protected],” which is connected to the name “Mikkel Hangaard” via a breach of patreon.com. This corroborates previous reporting by the Danish research collective @redoxdk.bsky.social, which identified Natteulven as Hangaard.

Screenshot of patreon.com breach on leak-lookup, showing that the email address “mikkkel1@hotmail.com” is connected to the name “Mikkel Hangaard”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

“Natt Danelaw” was another host of the Rope Culture podcast “The Hanged Fool,” and wrote an article for Rope Culture. In one Iron March message he mentions his alias Natteulven (Danish for “The Night Wolf”) and that he is “a proud member of Danskernes Parti,” a Danish anti-immigrant political party.

Crop of image on Æresblod’s Encyclopaedia Metallum page, showing "Natteulven"

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

In one of his Iron March messages, Змајевит shared the name of his Facebook account as “Данило Тотарвај” (the english transliteration of which is “Danilo Totarvaj”) and wrote “don't share personal info pls.”

Screenshots from FashyLeaks website (https://fashyleaks.com/iron-march?tab=messages&id=16606) showing the user “Змајевит” writing “Данило Тотарвај, the one with the mask and chetniks, don't share personal info pls”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

“Змајевит” co-hosted Rope Culture’s flagship banter podcast, “The Hanged Fool”, and was a moderator on Iron March. We’ve identified him as Danilo Totarvaj, a graduate of the University of Belgrade who works at a small video game development company.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Duiven re-used the same username for his personal email address and his Nazi email address, and posted the same unique nature photo on his personal VKontakte account and his Nazi Facebook account.

A nature photo uploaded to VKontakte by Alexandre Duiven on March 24, 2017

A nature photo uploaded to Facebook by Florian Geyer on October 7, 2016

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

“Florian Geyer” hosted Rope Culture’s “Christian Fascist” podcast, Mysterium Fasces. We’ve identified him as Alexandre Jacob Duiven, a June 2022 graduate of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Seminary in New York.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 10h

Today we published the last of three articles investigating the exposed web server for the neo-Nazi magazine Rope Culture. We’re identifying several far-right figures involved, including a Canadian Nazi podcaster-turned-Orthodox priest, a Danish metal musician, and a notorious American pedophile.

“Rope Culture” propagandists exposed and emails explored: From Iron March leaks to FashyLeaks

Part III: Exploring the podcasts hosted on the site and sifting through the private emails found in the web server leak

decoherence.media

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 22h

Thanks for the feedback! Can you try selecting the whole url and then opening the link or cut and pasting it into a browser?

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 22h

Thanks!

Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

If you want to support us, you can subscribe or make a tax-deductible donation.

Decoherence Media

Decoherence Media investigates authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods

decoherence.media

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

This is the second in a three part series that investigates the Rope Culture web server, part 3 drops tomorrow. In the meantime, read all of our articles on our website, and view the Rope Culture data on fashyleaks.com.

FashyLeaks

Search interface for Nazi forum datasets, including Iron March and Rope Culture.

fashyleaks.com

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

Based on data in the web server, the most common website that users were referred to Rope Culture from (clicking a link that took them to the Rope Culture website) was Facebook.

Stacked timeseries bar chart showing the sites that visitors were most commonly referred to the Rope Culture website from, between December 2015 and November 2017. The most common site was Facebook, followed by The Daily Stormer, Iron March, Twitter, Reddit, 8chan, Disqus, and Tumblr

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell, who is serving a 20 year sentence for trying to destroy an energy facility, published a painting on Rope Culture, and designed an advertisement for the site that ran on the image board 8chan.

Painting from Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell that was published in Rope Culture, showing a Nazi soldier after the battle of Kursk. Based on a photograph: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/german-soldier-sitting-with-his-head-in-his-hands-by-a-news-photo/3364054

Screenshot of archived 8chan snapshot showing an ad for submitting articles to Rope Culture, designed by Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

The server also contains nearly 1000 comments on the website, with every commenter’s email and IP address. Commenters include 40 Iron March users, former Atomwaffen Division leader John Cameron Denton, Daily Stormer writer Ben Garland, and convicted pedophile Wesley Gilreath.

Screenshot of FashyLeaks page showing a table of every person who commented on a Rope Culture article, including their email address and IP address: https://fashyleaks.com/rope-culture?tab=commenters

Personal information (email handle and IP address) redacted in screenshot but not on the FashyLeaks website

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

The server contains the edit history of every article published on Rope Culture. The site's editor criticized one author, writing “can you check your own writing time to time? we go through like 3-5 edits with the grammar and the comas and the longass sentences and crazy amount of commas.”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 1d

Yesterday we published the first of 3 articles that investigate the exposed web server for the neo-Nazi magazine Rope Culture. Today we've just published the second part, which analyzes the published articles, reader comments, and web traffic data.

Uncovered: Identities and tactics behind the neo-Nazi “Rope Culture” web server

Part II: Examination of the magazine's publication decisions, its odious commenters, and the platforms that promoted it

decoherence.media

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 2d

The source code for FashyLeaks’s frontend, backend & data pre-processing is on our GitHub page. If you have questions about how to use it, notice a bug, or have an idea for how to improve any part of it, create an issue on our GitHub page or contact us!.

Decoherence Media

Decoherence Media investigates authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods. - Decoherence Media

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