{{Short description|Technology entrepreneur}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2021}} {{Use American English|date=April 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Nicholas Lim | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = {{Birth based on age as of date|23|2021|4|14}}<ref name="Bloomberg" /> | birth_place = | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (DEATH date then BIRTH date) --> | death_place = | nationality = | other_names = | occupation = Entrepreneur, software developer | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = }}
'''Nicholas Lim''' (born {{Birth based on age as of date|23|2021|4|14|noage=1}}) is a technology entrepreneur and software developer based in Vancouver, Washington.<ref name="Bloomberg" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Macuk|first=Anthony|date=November 7, 2019|title=8chan back online under the name 8kun|url=https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/nov/07/8chan-back-online-under-the-name-8kun/|access-date=April 16, 2021|website=The Columbian|language=en-US}}</ref> Lim and his companies provide services to alt-tech, far-right and neo-Nazi websites, such as ''The Daily Stormer'', a neo-Nazi message board website, 8chan, the home of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, and Kiwi Farms, a harassment<ref>{{Cite news |last=Goforth |first=Claire |date=September 6, 2022 |title=Kiwi Farms gets back online thanks to the same service that's kept 8kun alive |work=The Daily Dot |url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/kiwi-farms-back-online-vanwatech/ |access-date=September 6, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Hate-filled Kiwi Farms message board finds new home with Southwest Washington tech company |url=https://www.opb.org/article/2022/09/06/kiwi-farms-new-provider-after-cloudfare-drops-site/ |access-date=September 7, 2022 |publisher=Oregon Public Broadcasting |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Bloomberg" /><ref name="Columbian" /> and anti-trans<ref>{{Cite web |last=Robertson |first=Adi |date=2022-09-07 |title=Kiwi Farms has been scrubbed from the Internet Archive |url=https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23341051/kiwi-farms-internet-archive-backup-removal |access-date=2022-09-13 |website=The Verge |language=en}}</ref> forum. In 2017, Lim founded BitMitigate, a website security company which in 2019 was acquired by Epik,<ref name="Columbian" /> an America based registrar and hosting company <ref>{{Cite web |title=Meet Epik, the right wing's best online friend – Fortune |url=https://fortune.com/2021/01/19/epik-parler-web-domain-dns-provider-gab-conservatives-social-media/ |access-date=2022-09-13 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Wilson |first1=Jason |title=How far-right extremist groups face exposure from army of hacktivists {{!}} The far right {{!}} The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/29/far-right-extremist-groups-data-breach-hackers |access-date=2022-10-26 |website=amp.theguardian.com |date=November 29, 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Epik is a refuge for the deplatformed far right. Here's why its CEO insists on doing it |url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/09/business/epik-hack-ceo-rob-monster-invs/index.html |access-date=2022-10-26 |website=CNN |date=December 9, 2021 |language=en}}</ref> company. In 2019 he founded VanwaTech, a webhosting and website security company.<ref name="Bloomberg" />
== Career == One of Lim's early projects was OrcaTech, a service he says was intended to be used by website owners to test their websites' abilities to withstand distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The website was also able to be used to levy DDoS attacks against others; Lim said he never investigated whether it was used in harmful ways.<ref name="Bloomberg">{{Cite news|last1=Turton|first1=William|last2=Brustein|first2=Joshua|date=April 14, 2021|title=A 23-Year-Old Coder Kept QAnon Online When No One Else Would|language=en|work=Bloomberg Businessweek|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-14/qanon-daily-stormer-far-right-have-been-kept-online-by-nick-lim-s-vanwatech|access-date=April 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417113800/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-14/qanon-daily-stormer-far-right-have-been-kept-online-by-nick-lim-s-vanwatech|archive-date=April 17, 2021}}</ref>
After dropping out of college, Lim founded BitMitigate in 2017 in Vancouver, Washington, when he was nineteen years old.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|last=Rosenberg|first=Mike|date=August 20, 2017|title=Why a Washington state man is trying to help neo-Nazis relaunch their website|work=The Seattle Times|url=https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/why-a-washington-state-man-is-trying-to-help-neo-nazis-relaunch-their-website/|access-date=April 16, 2021}}</ref><ref name="Columbian" /> The company provided website security services, including protection from DDoS attacks.<ref name="Columbian">{{Cite web|last=Macuk|first=Anthony|date=February 15, 2019|title=Epik buys Vancouver-based BitMitigate|url=https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/feb/15/epik-buys-vancouver-based-bitmitigate/|access-date=April 15, 2021|website=The Columbian|language=en-US}}</ref> Beginning in August 2017, BitMitigate provided security services to ''The Daily Stormer'', a neo-Nazi website which had just been denied service by Cloudflare after publishing an article mocking Heather Heyer, the victim of a vehicle ramming attack at the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier that month.<ref name="Bloomberg" /><ref name="Columbian" /> Lim contacted ''The Daily Stormer''{{'}}s founder, Andrew Anglin, after hearing he was having trouble staying online, and offered him free use of BitMitigate's services.<ref name="Bloomberg" /> Lim told ProPublica in August 2017 that he thought offering services to ''The Daily Stormer'' "would really get my service out there".<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Schwencke|first=Ken|date=August 18, 2017|title=Spurned by Major Companies, The Daily Stormer Returns to the Web With Help From a Startup|url=https://www.propublica.org/article/spurned-by-major-companies-the-daily-stormer-returns-to-the-web|access-date=April 16, 2021|website=ProPublica|language=en}}</ref> In 2018, Lim began to be mentored by Rob Monster, the founder and CEO of the web services company Epik.<ref name="Bloomberg" />
BitMitigate was still providing services to ''The Daily Stormer'' in February 2019, when they were acquired by Epik. As a result of the acquisition, Lim became Epik's chief technology officer.<ref name="Columbian" /> By that time, both BitMitigate and Epik had become known for servicing far-right and neo-Nazi websites which had been denied service by other internet services providers.<ref name="Columbian" /> Monster said in a 2021 interview with NPR that when Epik discovered they were providing services to ''The Daily Stormer'', they stopped doing so. Monster said that Epik's connection to the site was "regrettable", and that "the greatest cost of acquiring BitMitigate was not the amount of cash that we paid to buy the technology, but the entanglement."<ref name="Allyn-NPR">{{Cite web|last=Allyn|first=Bobby|date=February 8, 2021|title='Lex Luthor Of The Internet': Meet The Man Keeping Far-Right Websites Alive|url=https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965448572/meet-the-man-behind-epik-the-tech-firm-keeping-far-right-websites-alive|access-date=February 9, 2021|website=NPR|language=en}}</ref>
In August 2019, BitMitigate began providing services to 8chan, an imageboard forum that is home to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory and which has been linked to multiple mass shootings.<ref name="Bloomberg" /> BitMitigate took 8chan as a customer shortly after the forum was dropped by Cloudflare following three mass shootings (Christchurch, New Zealand, in March; Poway, California, in April; El Paso, Texas, in August) in which the perpetrators each used 8chan to spread extremist messages.<ref name="nytimes 20190804">{{cite news|last=Roose|first=Kevin|author-link=Kevin Roose|date=August 4, 2019|title=8chan Is a Megaphone for Gunmen. 'Shut the Site Down,' Says Its Creator.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/technology/8chan-shooting-manifesto.html|url-status=live|url-access=limited|access-date=August 5, 2019|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190805070853/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/technology/8chan-shooting-manifesto.html|archive-date=August 5, 2019|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Macuk|first=Anthony|date=August 5, 2019|title=BitMitigate becomes new security provider for 8chan|url=https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/aug/05/bitmitigate-becomes-new-security-provider-for-8chan/|access-date=April 16, 2021|website=The Columbian|language=en-US}}</ref> BitMitigate's decision to provide services to 8chan resulted in Voxility, a web services company that had been renting servers to BitMitigate and Epik, terminating their relationship with both companies.<ref name=":0" /> This brought 8chan back offline, as well as some other Epik customers, and Monster decided to stop providing services to 8chan shortly afterwards.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Salter|first=Jim|date=August 7, 2019|title=8chan resurfaces, along with The Daily Stormer and another Nazi site|url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/8chan-resurfaces-along-with-the-daily-stormer-and-a-nazi-site/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819035954/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/8chan-resurfaces-along-with-the-daily-stormer-and-a-nazi-site/|archive-date=August 19, 2019|access-date=August 11, 2019|website=Ars Technica|language=en-us}}</ref><ref name=":4u">{{cite web|last=Robertson|first=Adi|date=August 5, 2019|title=8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service|url=https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/5/20754943/8chan-epik-offline-voxility-service-cutoff-hate-speech-ban|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808121939/https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/5/20754943/8chan-epik-offline-voxility-service-cutoff-hate-speech-ban|archive-date=August 8, 2019|access-date=August 11, 2019|website=The Verge}}</ref>
=== VanwaTech === In approximately August 2019, Lim left Epik and announced that he had created VanwaTech, a web hosting and website security company also based in Vancouver, Washington. Through VanwaTech, Lim again began providing services to ''The Daily Stormer'' and to 8chan.<ref name="Bloomberg" /><ref name=":12">{{Cite news|last1=Harwell|first1=Drew|last2=Allam|first2=Hannah|author-link2=Hannah Allam|last3=Merrill|first3=Jeremy B.|last4=Timberg|first4=Craig|date=September 25, 2021|title=Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret|language=en-US|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/25/epik-hack-fallout/|url-status=live|access-date=September 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210925145339/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/25/epik-hack-fallout/|archive-date=September 25, 2021|issn=0190-8286}}</ref> According to Lim, he remained a partial owner of Epik after his departure as CTO.<ref name=":12" /> Jim Watkins, who owns 8chan, is also reportedly involved in VanwaTech.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gilbert |first=David |date=September 9, 2022 |title=QAnon's Jim Watkins Tried to Save Kiwi Farms. Now His Site 8Kun Is Down. |work=Vice News |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/kiwi-farms-jim-watkins-8kun/ |access-date=September 9, 2022}}</ref>
On September 6, 2022, Lim confirmed that VanwaTech had begun providing CDN services to the forum Kiwi Farms, a site previously dropped by Cloudflare and DDoS-Guard following protests related to the doxxing and harassment of Clara Sorrenti. Lim stated, "We maintain a firm commitment to our role as a neutral provider of internet services and not an internet censor."<ref name="dot-6sep2022">{{cite news |last1=Goforth |first1=Claire |title=Kiwi Farms gets back online thanks to the same service that's kept 8kun alive |url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/kiwi-farms-back-online-vanwatech/ |access-date=September 6, 2022 |work=The Daily Dot |date=September 6, 2022}}</ref>
In approximately May 2023, VanwaTech suspended all services and disabled their interface. The website displayed the message, "VanwaTech LLC has suspended all services. This status page is a temporary courtesy and will be shut down soon."<ref>{{Cite web |last=LLC |first=VanwaTech |title=VanwaTech LLC - Suspension of All Services |url=http://vanwa.tech/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511014436/http://vanwa.tech/ |archive-date=2023-05-11 |access-date=2025-08-08 |website=vanwa.tech |language=en}}</ref> It was later updated to include, "Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our services at our sole discretion".<ref>{{Cite web |last=LLC |first=VanwaTech |title=VanwaTech LLC - Suspension of All Services |url=http://vanwa.tech/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230603105035/http://vanwa.tech/ |archive-date=2023-06-03 |access-date=2025-08-08 |website=vanwa.tech |language=en}}</ref>
== Views == Lim has said that his choices to provide services to far-right clients who have been denied services by other internet providers are not based in support of their views, but a "maximalist" belief in freedom of speech. Lim has said that he believes restrictions on online speech are a greater danger to the United States than extremist violence, and that "we are one foot away from ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''".<ref name="Bloomberg" /> William Turton and Joshua Brustein writing in ''Bloomberg Businessweek'' said of Lim's defense of his extremist clientele, "At best, his apolitical framing comes across as naive; at worst, as preposterous gaslighting".<ref name="Bloomberg" />
In an April 2021 interview, Lim expressed intent to pivot in some ways away from serving predominantly extremist organizations, and instead to focus on providing services to pornographic websites.<ref name="Bloomberg" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lim, Nicholas}} Category:1990s births Category:Businesspeople from Vancouver, Washington Category:Chief technology officers Category:Computer programmers Category:Neo-Nazism in the United States Category:Living people Category:Technology company founders