An unprecedented amount of data including usernames, IP addresses and even the contents of thousands of private chat logs has been revealed on the net. The data belonged to the website IronMarch, which was founded in the 2011 by Alexander Mukhitdinov, a far-right Russian activist who uses the nickname "Slavros". In the nearly six years of its existence, the website contained the most extreme right-wing content ever posted on the net.
The discussions that took place on the IronMarch forums are believed to have led to the creation of numerous far-right groups in Europe, Australia and the United States. Among them is the infamous division Nuclear weapons, an American neo-Nazi group that focuses on street fighting and is known to train its members in the use of military-grade weapons and guerrilla tactics. Another group that organized and recruited through IronMarch was Vanguard America, one of the organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
But the website stopped its information and proselytizing activity at the end of 2017. No explanation was provided. However, users of far-right online forums are used to abruptly switching hosting platforms due to legal and police actions. So they did what they always do in these cases: they migrated to other far-right platforms where they continue to confront each other on the forums and organize rallies all over the world.
On Wednesday, however, a user who calls himself "antifa-data" uploaded what appears to be the entire metadata and archive of IronMarch's chat log on the website of Internet Archive. The content was subsequently removed, but not before it was downloaded by thousands of Internet Archive users, including government agencies. The data reportedly includes names and ids of IronMarch members, as well as the emails associated with their individual accounts. It also contains the IP addresses of IronMarch members and even the content of private messages exchanged with other members.
Since then, some investigative websites have reported that many IronMarch users were associated with email accounts belonging to American universities. Others have stated in private messages that they are members of the armed forces of different countries in Europe and the Americas. It appears that at least one user was a congressional candidate in the United States. Friday, the American website Military Times He said the US authorities were concerned that many IronMarch members claim to serve in the US military or have expressed a desire to join a military branch. A spokesman for the United States Marine Corps told the Military Times that "there is no place for racial hatred or extremism in the Marine Corps."