2026-08-22 / Signal #5
I Bought a $5 Domain and Logged 400,000 Calls to Military Bases
“I spent five euros and started logging every phone call to U.S. military bases.”
The Story
A researcher noticed expired nameservers for the dead ENUM (e164.arpa) phone-routing protocol covering remote islands that host U.S. military bases (Diego Garcia, Ascension). After buying the domain for €5, he accidentally logged hundreds of thousands of call records. A nation-state could have silently MITM’d every conversation.
Why It Matters
Forgotten 2000s internet infrastructure became an accidental backdoor into military communications. Old protocols never really die; they just wait for someone curious.
Evidence
First-person technical write-up, exploded on Hacker News (500+ points).
Sources
Daily scan: 2026-08-22